Wednesday 25 February 2009

LA/BU-010 Styggmann aborted activation

Monday this week I was on my way to LA/BU-010 Styggmann but had to return because the preparation of the skis where not suitable for this kind of snow conditions. To bad as I was only 1,5 - 2,0 kilometers away from the summit after skiing for about 6 kilometers. I used Tape Grip instead of normal ski wax and that caused huge amount of snow sticking under the skis when the air temperature rose well above the freezing point. I had to lift the ski from the ground in each step as gliding was impossible. I "walked" like this for about 2 kilometers before I decided to return so in total I struggled this way for about 8 kilometers. I'm sure I looked rather silly!


I was totally worn out when returning to the car park and had huge blisters on both my heels. I guess it will be some days until I put my ski boots or walking boots back on.

Parking spot: Ravalsjø

Road fee: 40 nok (coins or credit card)

Point where I returned: A few hundered meters after ascending Urskleiv

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Aage LA1ENA and I did a talk about SOTA at our local radio club tonight. Hopefully some of the club members will now join in. We're also talking about doing LA/TM-049 Holtankollen as a joint activation on a club night as a followup.

Saturday 14 February 2009

SOTA Summits in Telemark (LA/TM)

I have made a custom Google Map to show all the LA/TM Summits. The map can be found here

Monday 2 February 2009

LA/TM-064 Ørnenuten

This day did not start very well as I discovered that I was not able to open sotawatch. I drove to Svanstul where I parked my car. The thermometer in the car showed -15°C. I put on my skis and headed towards the summit. It was a lovely, sunny day but freezing cold!

After rigging up the antenna and radio on the summit I discovered that sotawatch was back online and noticed that Steve GM1INK/P was qrv from GM/SS-018. He answered me after a few calls. I then searched for a usable frequency and found it on 7.160MHz. After my first cqs I heard G0BPU answer me but when I tried to get back to him my FT-817 shut down. I turned it back on but the same happened over and over. My first guess was the power line from my battery pack so I cut the wire and tried a temporary field repair with tape. This did not help at all. I then tried to turn down the power to 2.5W and this worked. I managed to work a few more stations before I shut down my radio. Next time I will bring a 7.2Ah SLAB as it looks like the NiMHs are not usable in cold weather even though I tried to warm them with chemical hand warmers.

Thanks to G4OBK who held the frequency during my TX problems and also updated the chasers via sotawatch.


7MHz: 7 qsos
145MHz: 1 qso

DXCCs: GM, G, DL, LA

Edit:
Parking spot: Svanstul
Road fee: 50 nok (Credit Card only)