Illawara Region Activation's 12/02/2018 (VK2/IL-001, 002, 003, 005 and 007), VK2NU/P and VK2WFT/P.
For this Northern Englishman, 30ºC plus weather and SOTA are a bad mix. However, its mid-February and my points tally for the year stands at '1', with another 2 summits where I failed to get within the activation zone!
I've had these summits penciled in for sometime, for a hot day, and this seemed like it.
Only one of the summits involved much walking, and this was a short 500m, or so, trek. A 4am wake up, meet VK2WFT, followed by a 3-hour drive to Knights Hill (The plan was to activate the furthest from home, and work backwards).
VK2/IL-007 Knights Hill
We arrived about 08:20 local time, and set-up 2 stations just off the side of the access road. The road is gated, but open. There are large broadcast towers either side of the Knights Hill Road, with the summit near the towers to the south!
When setting up I found that a stereo plug for my straight CW key had come away, and without a spare, had to revert to the Elecraft KX3 Paddle, which as you will see in previous posts, I'm not a fan of.
I operated CW, and VK2WFT stuck to SSB. The WPX RTTY was still in full swing and there was some loud stations in the CW portion of 40m, but managed to find a clear spot and activated the summit in about 45 minutes.
With another 4 summits to go, there was no hanging around and we were on the road by 09:45 local.
Signals were strong but a combination of QRM from RTTY, the broadcast towers and severe QSB (which was to plaque us all day), made it difficult.
FYI there are HV power lines near the access road, so care should be taken, this wouldn't have helped with the QRM either.
Picture after activation, having breakfast on Knights Hill Road, Summit Tower in the distance..
Whilst having breakfast a workman stopped in his UTE for a chat, and explained that the site was a WIN-TV transmitter, with a 250kW Output, covering Woolongong.
VK2/IL-002 Wingecarribee
A 20 min drive from the previous summit got us to Trig Station Lane. The summit is on private land, but part of the road is in the AZ. We found a spot under some low trees which was just large enough to park the car off the road, and set up a station (no room for 2 here), with a short vertical antenna on a tripod.
It was starting to warm up, and the shade was great, but we hadn't counted on the mossies, which were obviously keen for breakfast.
When setting up, an elderly lady drove past and had a word.. She seemed less than impressed with our activation, mumbling something about being 'spied on..' before driving off.
Started calling on 10:25 local, and managed 6 QSO's before wrapping up at 10:37!! We made a hasty retreat, 'before ASIO arrived', and moved onto the next summit.
Sorry, no photos for this one!!
VK2/IL-001 Mount Gibralter
About 40 minutes drive (with a few wrong turns), got us to the summit. the trig marker was only 50m from where we parked the car, so another nice and easy one, although the sun was now high in the sky and temps were above 30ºC.We setup 10m from the Trig Marker on a concrete pad, which at some stage was the base of a radio tower.
Towers on the summit
With a bit more room and time, we set up 2 antennas again, the OCF Dipole on a squid-pole, and the multiband tripod mounted vertical.
Bands conditions had changed greatly from the previous summits, and 'local' contacts were getting more difficult to make. I made 5 CW QSO's between 11:38 and 11:50, before handing over to Tony to make his SSB contacts.
VK2/IL-005 Mount Alexandra
IL-005 is only a few km's from Gibralter, but lunch was needed, so we stopped in Mittagong for some refreshment.
A few wrong turns got us eventually to the parking area, and a 15 minute (steepish) walk got us to the top of Mt. Alexandra just after 2pm local time.
Just past the summit and within the AZ is an open area with picnic tables, which is an ideal spot, with plenty of shade.
Just the one station this time, with the dipole on a squid-pole. Propagation was getting very tough at this stage, and it took 30 minutes to get 6-CW contacts on 40m, before Tony taking over for his SSB QSO's
Note squid-pole strapped to table.
With the comfort provided we were happy to spend a bit longer here, and take in the 'views'.
VK2/IL-003 Mount Wanganderry
A further 40 minute drive from Alexandra, got us to Mt. Wanganderry. This again is a drive to summit, up Wanganderry Road. This is a dirt road, but just about managed it with my 2wd, although I did scrape the bottom several times (beware if you have low clearance).
The summit again is on private land, but the activation zone is very large, and covers a long section of the road. There is plenty of room at the side of the road, to park, and a barbwire fence makes a good support for a squid-pole. There is no shade here!
Although getting later in the afternoon, it was still very hot, without any shade. I made my required 4-CW QSO's on 40m (over a 6 minute period!), before letting Tony activate the summit on SSB.
By this stage band conditions had picked up and 40m was booming in. Tony had to QSY a few times, as other stations and nets commandeered his operating frequency, obviously not hearing his 'QRP' signal.
Small hill nearby... To me this seemed like the highest point, but doesn't match the maps??
Summary:
- 600km roundtrip
- 20 points
- 16 hours total time, with about 7-8 hours in the car.
All up it was an interesting day out, but far from an ideal SOTA day-trip. I can't say I'd do it again, but if your passing through the area they are all easy and quick summits.
I doubt I'll ever manage 5 summits at one go again, so am happy with that, and for a change everything went pretty much to plan!
Stuff ups for the day...
- Broken CW-Key cable, I have a spare sitting on my desk, but didn't pack it.
- What I thought was a broken Elecraft Microphone (was keying the radio, but no audio out). Turned out I had switched the mic-bias setting off, when trying out a headset a while back, and hadn't switched it back on.. It took me 2 summits to figure this out!
- Auto-QSY. The VFO knob on my KX3 is a little loose, and on several occasions would move mid QSO, putting me a several hundred hertz (on CW), or a few kHz (SSB) off frequency. I didn't have a hex key on me to fix this, and couldn't remember the key-press to lock the VFO..
Lastly... apologies to those who were chasing, and we didn't work.. As mentioned before QSB was extreme, and there were several occasions where stations called, and when we went back, there was no-one there. Especially the case on SSB! On top of this, several summits had high RF noise levels making life difficult, and due to the length of day, we kept things very, very short on each summit.
Cheers
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