VHF (FM) Activity in EA8 Canary Islands

Hi,
I’ll be soon travelling with my family to Lanzarote Island and I’d like to attempt an activation from one of the summits available on the island.
Unfortunately I’ll have time and luggage weight restrictions so I was thinking of attempting a VHF activation using just my handheld radio.

I’d like to know if any of you have experience with Canary Islands, is there any activity on VHF (FM) band?

Thanks a lot!
73 Gab
EA7JUG - IZ1KSW

I can’t inform you on this but I guess you should have access to some repeater. In case you can speak Spanish, you could inform about your intentions regarding your SOTA activation and the need to make at least 4 QSOs on a simplex frequency out of the repeater to qualify the activation and get the points. Then inform of the simplex frequency you will QSY to for your activation in the hope that 4 colleagues follow you and make QSO with you.
If you can’t make this in Spanish, I’d do it in English, but the chances of success will be less.
If you have access to different repeaters, you can try this strategy on as many of them as you want.
Good luck.
73,

Guru

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Thanks for the suggestion Guru,
I had that in mind too. I can speak Spanish quite fluently so it’s not going to be a problem.
I’ll look up some Canary repeaters and I’ll add them to my ft-60 memories.
I’ll let you know how it goes!

Thanks a lot!
73 Gab
EA7JUG - IZ1KSW

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I just returned home from my vacation in Lanzarote island.
I was able to activate the planned summit using my VHF handheld radio with 5W power.
Even though the summit (SOTA Summits) wasn’t that high (around 200 meters) its position is ideal for VHF contacts with the other Canary Islands.
After few unsuccessful calls on 145.500 I followed what Guru recommended and I tried a few calls on the repeaters I could hear from the summit. The first response came from Gran Canaria where a nice OM, after telling him I was in a SOTA activation, agreed to try a direct call at 145.450. It worked out very well, with strong and stable signal from both sides. We both were quite pleased with it and, after telling him I was QRP with the stock antenna he was kind enough to “spread the voice” of my activation on some others repeaters. After few minutes more OMs came to the frequency and before the batteries ran out I had put in the log 5 QSO, enough for a valid activation. The wind at that point was picking up quite badly and I decided to get back to the hotel.

I really enjoyed this activation, I wasn’t expecting to be able to actually make enough QSOs but Canary OMs were super kind. Thumbs up for them!

No pictures as, in the rush, I left the phone in the car, however you can find some pictures of the summit from an old Tom’s M1EYP post: EA8 Lanzarote - #22 by M1EYP

73 Gab
EA7JUG - IZ1KSW

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