SOTA activation FL/VL-101 Tour Malakof

For the first time in 2 years I did a SOTA activation again. "Tour Malakof" at 311 meter.

I made 6 QSO's on 40m SSB and 1 QSO on 20m SSB. Conditions were not that good. I was using the mcHF SDR with 10 Watts output. A sloping half wave antenna on 40m, and a vertical half wave antenna on 20m. On a 10 meter fiber pole.

Spot me in the picture below!




Date: 16-07-2021
Summit: FL/VL-101

Activation summit PA/PA-005 and PA/PA-006

Today I activated two summits in PA. PA/PA-006 Signaal Imbosch 110m and PA/PA-005 Galgenberg (Terlet) 102m.

Both in SSB with a new home brew 50 Watt amplifier. On PA-006 it output was 15 Watt and on PA-005 30 Watt. Reports on PA-005 where indeed a bit better. I used the Yaesu FT-817nd on a 3 cell lithium 3100 mAh battery. The amplifier had its own 3 cell lithium 5200 mAh battery. As with most of my activations I used a End Feed Half Wave antenna on a 10m pole with a home brew tuner.

We walked from a parking place to the two summits and back. Total of 20 km. Nice wetter and beautiful nature.








Date: 11-06-2017
Summit: PA/PA-006

Date: 11-06-2017
Summit: PA/PA-005

Activation summit F/VO-073 Le Haut Koenisbourg 733m

The first summit in France this year. I went here by bicycle. 16km from the camp site. Climbing the last 8km to the top. Climbing about 500m in altitude.

Because of the terrorist threat and the chatteau attracts a lot of tourists, there were some military police with heavy automatic guns checking everyone's bags. I didn't come for the Chatteau on the summit so they didn't check my backpack with all the wires, batteries and electronic stuff what just might be A home brew explosive. (with some imagination). The 10m fibre mast looks like A riffle! But all went well.

Not many QSO's because after 15 minutes it started to rain. Also my internet connection didn't work so I could not spot my self on sotawatch. But after this activation I figured out how to spot via SMS.






Date: 04-08-2016
Summit: F/VO-073

Comming SOTA activations

From 4 august till 14 august 2016 I try to do some SOTA activations. I'm in France in the Alsace/Vosges.

I will be QRV in CW on 40m around 7.032 MHz. As I am still a beginner CW OP please be gentle with me. 12-15 wpm with a little more space between the characters will do :-) Please no pile-ups hi!

My equipment:
- Yaesu FT-817ND 1 - 5 Watt output
- 10 meter fibreglass pole
- End feed half wave sloping antenna for 20-30-40m
- QRP Long wire tuner for EFHW antennas
- Internal FT817 battery
- 1900 mAh 10 x AA NiMH battery
- Inline microphone compressor

If 40m doesn't work I will try 30m CW on 10.118 MHz +/- QRM.

Hope to work you!

SOTA sites:
www.sota.org.uk
www.sotawatch.org
www.sotamaps.org

This weekend SOTA activations

This weekend (1-2 march 2014) I will try to activate some SOTA summits in Belgium. Depending on the wetter and other activities I will try to activate ON/ON-001, ON/ON-010, ON/ON-011 and ON/ON-013.

I will be QRV in CW on 30m around 10.120 MHz. As I am still a beginner CW OP please be gentle with me. 15 wpm with a little more pause between the characters will do :-) Please no pile-ups!

I'm using a Elecraft KX3. 5 Watt output. 10 meter fibreglass pole. End feed half wave sloping antenna. 5000 mAh LiPo battery. QRP Long wire tuner.

If 30m doesn't work I will try 40m on 7.032 MHz.

Hope to work you!

SOTA sites:
www.sota.org.uk
www.sotawatch.org
www.sotamaps.org
www.adventureradio.de

Update:
Things didn't work out as planned! In the car, on the way to the holiday park, my wife told me she had booked a different park then what I thought the holiday park would be! (Amazing isn't!) The park she had booked was more to the west of Belgium. There was only one sota summit with more then one point. So no high score that weekend :-( But still a lot of fun :-)

The summit I activated was ON/ON-006 La Croix Scaille. It was 55 km driving. Walked about 2km. After 30 minutes transmitting it started to rain. I had to quit. The new KX3 worked great!

Date: 01-03-2014
Summit: ON/ON-006

Comments

My first SOTA activation!

On 23 februari 2011 15:00z I did my first SOTA activation! In Germany on summit DM/RP-003. "Schwarzer Mann" 697m. WX was cloudy temp was about 0C. Not very cold but after an hour, CW transmitting was getting more difficult. I made lots of errors.
The first 15 minutes nobody seems to hear me. But then there was 9A7W. My first SOTA QSO. Then again for 15 minutes nothing. Was my equipment working? Then at 15:32z G3RDQ was in the log. He put my callsign in the spot listing on the sotawatch site. That was when the pile-up started. As a beginner CW OP that was really hard. But I've managed to get 22 QSO's in the log. It was great! Reports where excellent. SOTA is fun!

Used equipment:
Yaesu FT-817ND @ 5 Watts CW 10.121 MHz.
Half wave end fed vertical on 30m band (on 15m fiber mast)
Tiny home-brew QRP longwire tuner
10m RG-58 coax (too long)
Kent paddle (too heavy. must replace this load)
10 x AA NiMh battery pack 12V - 2650 mAh
Magellan Meridian Gold GPS

SOTA sites:
http://www.sota.org.uk/
http://www.sotawatch.org/
http://www.adventureradio.de/

And now the results! 22 QSO's and 13 DXCC's entities worked!
9A DL EA G GM HA HB9 LZ OK OZ PA S5 SM

By activating DM/RP-003 "Schwarzer Mann" I earned my first 6 points. I can't wait until the next activation!

Date: 23-02-2011
Summit: DM/RP-003

Comments