With Winter well and truly here in South Aus, it puts a little bit of a dent on going out and activating!  It has been raining almost every day this week, but a break in the rain today I made a quick decision to grab my portable kit and do the 20 minute drive up to Mt Gawler – VK5/SE-013

This is not only a close to home summit, but an easy activation, given that Most of Mt Gawler road between Airstrip Rd and Millbrook Rd is in the activation zone.  We drove in, parked the car, grabbed the bag with the gear and walked out of the activation zone down the trail into the Mt Gawler Reserve, then back up.

On-air and calling it took a few minutes before the first contact for the day, as there was a lot of noise on the bands and RTTY way down almost everywhere!  We were on the “protected side of the hill, but it was still windy and cold.

We had a steady stream over the next 30 minutes and packed up about 45 minutes after arriving having 21 contacts logged, and unfortunately a few missed ones today.  A few reports of my signal being a bit off today means I need to take a quick look at everything, possibly due to the cold and not a fully charged battery could have contributed.

No points for me as an activator this time, but the chasers appreciated the 2 points from this summit, and it is good to have an accessible summit that I can get out away from the noise at home at very little notice.

Today, managed to log VK1, VK2, VK3 and VK5 stations, quite a few of now familiar calls and a few new ones as well.

VK5WG, VK3CAT, VK3PF/q, VK3FPSR, VK3EK, VK3MRG, VK1EM, VK3FQSO, VK2IO, VK2KTT, VK5PAS, VK3WE, VK2GAZ, VK3XYQ, VK3AMB, VK3ANL, VK2TWL, VK2YK, VK5EE, VK3DET, VK5FTRG

Timed it perfectly today as 5 minutes after leaving, the rain started yet again.

An early morning start was needed to get us up to Mt Bryan – the highest summit in the Mt Lofty Ranges.   This is a summit that is only available during the winter month’s as the Heysen trail, which leads up to the summit is closed during the summer fire-ban season from 15 November – 30 April

We planned to be on the summit at 23:00UTC, so we could take advantage of the Day Roll-Over and hopefully secure a few more contacts.

Weather was looking up, it had been a pretty clear night, but in the 5 minutes we were putting the gear into the car low clouds started rolling in from the South – not a great sign.

After a 2 hour drive we arrived at Mt Bryan and then headed the 17km up Mt Bryan Road East, arriving at the Heysen trail for the hike to the summit just after 7am to be greeted my a magnificent sunrise!

It was a little ominous to look up and not be able to see the summit as it was covered in clouds.

Somewhere up in the clouds is the summit that we were on the way to.

Yes, somewhere in the cloud there is a summit.

Just below the cloud-line on the way to the summit.

We made it up to the top and signed the visitors book, then found somewhere out of the wind to set up ,and were on air on 40m at about 23:15

There was a summit in the clouds!

Yes, the hike up the hill is a comfortable 1hr 15 minutes from the road, with about a 4kg pack, radio, battery, drink, antenna, squid pole and chair.

We used the fence post just down between the peak with the old trig point and the memorial cairn on it to attach the squid pole – as it was the only point in the activation zone that was a little bit out of the wind!

When it is cold and damp, I was very glad to have brought a chair and not been sitting on the ground!

We were in the cloud and managed 25 contacts before the day rolled over.  Just before day roll-over a very fine rain started that was getting right thru everything.

A further 14 contacts were made before we pulled the plug at just after 00:15 and packed up.

A few more photos on the summit before we made our way back down the trail – where the wind had picked up and the rain was just blasting thru!

The stone chair

The remains of the original trig point

Back at the car in just under an hour from leaving the summit, we headed back and stopped by the Burra Bakery for a pie on the way home.

13/06/14 worked the following stations:

VK5LY, VK5NIG, VK5PAS, VK5AKH/m, VK2YW, VK3PF/q, VK2IO, VK2DAG, VK1MA, VK6MB, VK3DET, VK5WG, VK1DI, VK3AMB, VK2KTT, VK3FMOL, VK5FIVE, VK3FQSO, VK5FMIC, VK5ZM/p, VK2TWR, VK3BYD, VK5CZ, VK5QI, VK5FGRY/p

And after the day rolled over, worked the following on the 14/06/14

VK6MB, VK5FGRY/p, VK1MA, VK2TWR, VK2IO, VK5LY, VK5WG, VK3PF/q, VK3WE/q, VK3AMB, VK5NIG, VK3FQSO, VK5PAS, VK2LAX

A big thanks for everyone that called in making the hike to the summit worth the effort!

SOTA Summit VK5/SE-013

Went out and did my first SOTA activation this afternoon.  It was a nice day and I had a little bit of time.  This summit is very accessible and only a 15 minute drive from home.  On the way home we posted an alert to sotawatch in the hope we would have a successful activation.

We found a suitable spot to do the activation on the side of the road, and turned around, then jumped out and walked into the zone with my kit.

Put up the 40M dipole and tuned to 7.095 and put out a CQ call at 06:23UTC.

You might note that in the photo, I am holding my headphones away from my ear – a necessity as i do not have any ALC on the RX and don’t need a strong station blasting my ears out!

Within a minute on the 2nd call, VK5NIG replied to my call and let me know that he had been out and activated this site earlier in the day!  (next time, look at the alerts before heading out…)

The responses to my calls came thick and fast and over the next hour. I had 33 contacts in the log for the activation.

On the way home, I got an e-mail that had a short video attached from vk5fgry – from his portable location in Morialta CP (about 16km away) he recorded my last logged contact for the activation with VK3FB/p

MtGawler20140524

By this time a few of my earlier contacts let me know that my signal was getting pretty bad – like my battery was getting flat, so I packed up and called it an afternoon.

just under an hour and 33 logged, a pretty successful 1st SOTA activation.

Calls logged:  VK5NIG, VK3UBY, VK3YDN, VK2UH, VK1MA, VK3XL, VK3FQSO, VK5FGRY/P, VK4FR/P5, VK5WG, VK3FPSR, VK3FOWL, VK3AFW, VK5NQP, VK2YK, VK5ZAR, VK2MT/P, VK2KTT, VK3AZZ, VK3AMB, VK3ARR, VK3AXH, VK3FAJH, VK1NAM, VK2QR, VK5KPR, VK2NNN, VK1DI, VK3FSWB, VK8GM, VK2EXA, VK3NCR/2, VK3FP/P

There are a few other easily accessible summits that I will get out and activate in the coming weeks.