SOTA & Hammocking in Orlik mountain range

I went last week-end on a micro-adventure in nearby Czech republic. I spent the night in a hammock and had a fantastic time. I thought I’d share a couple of pictures.

The targets were Medvědí vrch and Jelení loučky, two 10-pointers in the Orlik range nearby the town of Jeseník.

I set off from the parking at about 5.30pm. It took me about 1.5h to walk to the spot I planned to spend the night. I usually search on mapy.cz for a spot away from the main path and with a viewpoint. I also plan for a backup spot, in case the first one doesn’t work out. The first spot I chose turned out very well; there was a very small shelter with a bench which allow me to prepare some food, enjoy the sunset and listen to some Czech music on my FT2D in a very comfortable position :slight_smile: The setup for the hammock was a bit trickier due to lack of suitable trees but I found a compromise eventually. I decided not to deploy the tarp above the hammock as the forecast was for a very dry and clear night. In the worst case, I knew I could quickly move to the shelter. Throughout the night (I woke up quite often as my dog was slighly agitated) I could clearly see the milky way; on uncommon sight if you live like me in a urban area.

I set off in the morning with the goal to start to first activation at 8am (I am quite used to early morning activations and I noticed quite a few times that 8am is the breaking point; chasers seem to turn on their radios sharp at 8am :sweat_smile:).

So first came Medvědí vrch. Despite the early hour, I filled-in my log with 15 CW contacts on 40m and 4 on 20m. I packed after the pile-up dried up.

The trip to the next summit, Jelení loučky, was uneventful. Strangely enough, I made less contacts on this summit, 14 in total, despite the more regular hour. The highlight of the activation was a DX to Indonesia (@YC2VOC). I realized this only entering my logs back home! I’m delighted I fought hard for this contact; it took many repeats and I gave Galih a 229 report as he was more often in than out of the noise!
The SW-3B, along with the GM0EUL key worked flawlessly; it’a a joy to use this rig and you can’t feel it in your backpack! I used to regret the lack of CQ SOTA keyer message, but on short activations it’s really not an issue.

I rushed down to the valley, and reached the parking at 1.30pm.

All in all I spent less than 20h outdoors but with a night under the stars and two successful activations, I certainly had a lot of fun :slight_smile: I met an astonishing number of 2 hikers on the way (about 20km), this on a week-end of 14-15 of August. I recommend this area for those who like me enjoy peace and quiet in the mountains!

73 de OK/SP6SUD/p

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Hello Romain, thanks for the great report and photos. Glad you had a terrific time.

73 de Geoff vk3sq

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