Visit to Belgium, Germany, Czech Rep and Austria 21/8 to 5/9

Hi all, I’ll be in the “bottom left” corner of the Czech Republic next week and the week after at Frymburk.

Mostly cycling at the Tandem Club international rally on the first week, then hills in the second week.

On Friday I’ll aim to do a little detour to activate (I won’t say climb!) Signal de Botrange ON/ON-001 on the way through to overnight in Nuremburg. On Saturday I will continue to Frymburk in OK.

On the Saturday I have a few alternative hills on the way through.
DM/BM-277
DM/BM-063
DM/BM-065
DM/BM-282
DM/BM-283
DM/BM-288
DM/BM-287
Maybe you have some other suggestions?

Ideally two or three would be good. So I’m looking for short walks and not too far off my route from Passau, along Route 12 north into OK (Edit: I stupidly mistyped ON here before).

Any suggestions gratefully received.

I’m guessing 2M is a waste of time? Probably use 40M and 20M on SSB.

Once I am there I’ll plan some more - going to buy a few paper maps in region, I only have electronic to work from at the moment on my Tablet and Smartphone.

73
Gerald
MW0WML

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Good luck Gerald, will listen out. In any event have a great time.
Cheers
Mike

For ON/ON-001 there is a nice open place at 50.500579° / 6.091377°. You can make pretty nice contacts on 2m from there, but it tend to be a wasted of time due to the lack of chasers on 2m.

73, Peter OK/ON4UP (in the north west part of OK)

Thanks Peter.

Think I’ve finalised my Saturday pair… any help on these or general “access” comments gratefully received.

DM/BM-277 Steinberg, seems like a short walk from the south up a farm track to the AZ. Anyone know if I will get access problems??? Not quite sure what the local “custom” is about walking up farm tracks to summits in this bit of Germany? (I don’t speak ANY German)

DM/BM-063 Almberg, a few route choices, but it looks again like a walk up farm tracks from the south. Again, any access info, either specific or general would be gratefully received.

Finally… I have a copy of my Licence with me (of course) and I am taking copies of the local SOTA Association Manuals as well. This is to “show” to anyone who approaches me, especially anyone official like a Police Officer. The last thing I want to happen is to be arrested as a “spy”! :smile:

Hi Gerald,

do not worry about walking on farm tracks in Germany. You are legally allowed to walk on all farm tracks and even leave them in the forest. But be aware walking in the forest is at your one’s risk. So you cannot blame the land owner in case you get hurt by a falling branch or stepping into a hole. Walking over grassland or fields is ok as long as you do not create damage to the farmers’ crops.

Chance to get into contact with any offical like a police officer is extremely low. Perhaps some other hikers are asking questions out of curiosity. In any case: Most Germans understand at least a few words of English.
If you feel more safe you can carry a sheet of paper with the following text, but I bet you won’t need it:
“Ich komme aus Großbritannien und spreche leider kein Deutsch. Ich bin Funkamateur und nutze meinen Urlaub in Deutschland, um meinem Hobby nachzugehen. Aufgrund internationaler Vereinbarungen darf ich auch in Deutschland Amateurfunkgeräte auf den dem Amateurfunk zugewiesen Frequenzen benutzen.”
translated:
I am from the UK and unfortunately do not speak German. I am a amateur radio operator and use my vacation in Germany to pursue my hobby. Due to international agreements I am allowed to operate my radio on amateur radio frequencies in Germany.

If you use a more decent antenna than the rubber duck of your HT calling on 2 m FM may get you some QSOs into the log. In this region some German and Austrian chasers are monitoring 145,500 MHz. But do not rely on getting the 4 QSOs on 2 m but have HF as a back up.

The official maps and high resolution aerial photos of Bavaria are available at Bayernatlas. Sorry, seems only to have a German user interface. With the drop down box on the right hand side you can switch between Luftbild (aerial photo) and Karte (map).
Sorry I have never been on these summits myself, but they should be very easy to reach.
DM/BM-0277 seems to be accesible from the marked position. Propably driving any further (if allowed anyway) would violate the rule of ascending the last part non motorized.
DM/BM-063 is nearly a drive on with the Restaurant near the actual summit. In winter this is a quite busy skiing area don’t know whether it is crowded in summer, too.

73 de Michael, DB7MM

Michael that is fantastic information! Thank you so much.

I will print that suggested text out just in case.

73
Gerald

Watch out for the small black flies … they bite! Enjoy your activations Gerald.

73, Peter - OK/ON4UP

Thanks Michael… I used your words… but in Austria. Worked fine with the local farmer I met who was amused at the mad antics of this British person. He only commented “But this is Austria?”. I explained it applied here too.

I’m going to do a write up of the trip in the next few days. Now back to being very busy with work and catching up on some other tasks.

Thanks again.
73
Gerald

Thanks Peter. Useful info… I didn’t hang around long enough for the flies to bite! After I left this summit I still had to drive another 500Km to my hotel that night… and I had already driven over 350Km to get here, plus the ferry from Dover to Dunkirk.

73
Gerald
MW0WML