Abstract
January 16, 2021 11:00 – 12:35 UTC
Wx: Sunny, approx. -6°C no winds, 60 cm of snow
Walking time: 30 min. up, 25 min. down
Ascent/ descent: approx. 40 vertical metres
Rig: KX3 / 10W, 2.5 Ah Li-Ion battery (4S), Palm Mini Paddle
Ant: 22 m end fed wire with QRP L- Tuner as inverted Vee on a tree
Condx on the higher bands were average and activity was low.
60 metres through 30 metres produced many strong signals.
k = 1, SFI = 73
Activation report:
Sunny weather and lots of snow called for another winter activation. The choice fell on „Wandbühl“ as I expected it to be easily accessible and not too crowded. Well, it turned out that I was only partially right.
The hiking trail was well prepared. There were also some cross-country ski-tracks. But soon I had to leave the tracks and found myself in knee-deep snow. It was fun but also pretty exhausting. This easy summit became somewhat challenging.
At the top I prepared my shack close to the trees, where the snow wasn’t that deep.
I worked the bands from 60 metres to 17 metres in descending order, searching for S2S everytime I QSYed to another band. The low bands produced many QSOs with mostly strong signals. The pile-ups were well behaved. Even 30 metres, where activity is often low, was fairly busy.
Just recently there were complaints here on the SOTA reflector about rude behaviour and deliberate QRM. I also experienced this during previous activations but not today. It was a real pleasure to hand out the reports.
20 metres and 17 metres were a bit disappointing with only two QSOs on 20 (zero on 17). But one of them was DX, which was a nice little compensation.
Finally I tried 40 SSB. Actually I don’t like the crowded SSB portion of the band where it’s hard to keep a frequency for more than ten minutes. But it went quite well with mostly loud signals and pleasant QSOs.
When the pile-up had completely dried up, it was time to pack in and leave. I did so with a heavy heart but hope that the snow will still be there next weekend 
More details and photos can be found here:
It was lots of fun. Thanks for the QSOs and cu soon!
73, Roman
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