OE5REO - Summits On The Air

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2011-05-11T16:39:00.003+02:00

hochsalm 1405m (sota oe/oo-063)

2010-12-29T15:38:00.000+01:00

i gained some weight during christmas time ... so i decided to do another summit for exercise. fog in the valley and nice blue sky on the summit. unfortunately there was bad weather coming from the south and the sun hid behind dark clouds. so it got very cold up there ... i managed 9 qso's in 20 minutes. not very much snow on the mountain, i even left my snoeshoes in the car. thanks for all the nice contacts in 2010 and i wish all of you a HNY 2011!!

schieferstein 1206m (sota oe/oo-277)

2010-11-14T17:08:00.000+01:00

beautiful weather and temperatures up to 20°c is very unusual for that time of year. but today the weatherman was 100% right and i enjoyed a great day on the mountain.

the way up was nice, but a little slippery. most of the path is on the ridge of the mountain, so i had to be careful. i even had to climb up a ladder! i reached the summit after 1 1/2 hours of walking ... lot's of other people also hiked up, so it was hard to find a nice place in the sun. but you can see on the photo that i managed to find a place to rest :-)

today on 2m there were several stations qrv, i even managed five summit-2-summit-qso's. i spent two hours on the summit. my aprs-beacon was digipeated often during my ascend and descend.

pfannstein 1423m (sota oe/oo-061) and herrentisch 1333m (sota oe/oo-072)

2010-11-04T15:31:00.004+01:00

almost three months passed since my last sota-activation. today i chose pfannstein and herrentisch which i have activated before. i started my tour at "kremsursprung" and walked up a nice path that is not marked in any map ... only few people know that trail. millions of leaves on the ground combined with my hiking boots produced a very high noise level :-)

after 1 1/2 hour i reached the first summit of today. unfortunately not a single station answered my cq-call on "rauher kalbling", so i had to leave for the next summit without a valid activation.

half an hour later i was on top of "pfannstein" and had a look at the newly built cross on the summit. after i found the pfannstein-geocache i tuned my vx-8 to 145.500 and found that oe5ein (max) was already qrv from a summit nearby. we had a nice chat and after a while i made five contacts. so i was ready to leave for the next summit.

i already activated "herrentisch" this year in may, but it's a nice summit and so i could not resist to visit the place. again i had a chat with oe5ein, who also had reached another summit. unfortunately the sun hid behind the clouds, but it was very warm for november.

sorry, but no photos today. my aprs-beacon was digipeated several times ... here is a screenshot:

kleiner sonnstein 923m (sota oe/oo-100) and großer sonnstein 1037m (sota oe/oo-087)

2010-08-10T18:48:00.001+02:00

the tour started between traunkirchen and ebensee at a crowded parking place. i knew that this is a popular mountain, but i did not expect so many people. the way up is steep and nice. it would be even more nice if there were less people around. about 2 minutes before the summit there is a hut where you can buy food and drinks. on the summit there was permanent coming and going of people. i was glad i chose a spot a little off the path to build up my station. the view was fabulous (now i know why so many people go up there ...)

after some qso's on 7, 14 and 145 mhz i headed for the second summit. a nice walk of about 45 minutes and after some rock climbing (very easy) i reached gr. sonnstein at 14:00 local time. again the signals on hf were not too good and so i did not stay too long on shortwave. on vhf i worked oe5iro and oe5rtp who were on a big sota-expedition with lot's of summits on the "höllengebirge".

nothing special happened on the way down and i reached the car at 16:30 local time. on the way home i had another chat with oe5iro and oe5rtp, who were already activating another summit.

hochobir 2139m (sota oe/kt-078)

2010-07-11T19:36:00.001+02:00

summer is here to stay ... again a hot, hot day with temperatures well above 30 degrees. i thought that normal people would spend the day at a lake rather than carry about 12kg of sota-equipment up the mountain ... but i was wrong!!

i got up early to avoid the high temperatures in the afternoon. i had a bit of luck that 2/3 of the path was in the forest. on the way up i even met another ham-radio-operator (sorry, i forgot the call). on the summit there were lot's of people around, despite the hot weather. i did not want to disturb the other hikers, so i mounted my dipole antenna a little bit down the mountain to a small tree.

unfortunately i did not check if there was a contest going on ... no chance to find a clear frequency. on 7195 i was able to work a few stations with very much qrm. on 20m i found a clear spot also, but after two minutes some russian station took over calling "cq contest". sota just does not make fun when there is a contest!!

luckily there was the slovenian sota-community ... they made this activation a success after all. i worked several stations from S5-land on 145.575, even some s2s-contact were possible.

for the next activations i will again take my mp1-antenna with me ... i think this areal is the better choice for sota. easier to build up, no gfk-pole needed, less space needed. the next project will be to look for some lighter batteries to reduce weight.

ferlacher horn 1840m (sota oe/kt-116)

2010-07-08T19:16:00.002+02:00

spent some days of my holidays in klagenfurt and decided to do two sota-activations. hot weather predicted (over 30 degrees) ... and the weatherman was right. both the ascent and the descent was steep and the sweat was flowing like a river. i needed about 2 hours to reach the peak of ferlacher horn.

on the summit i found a nice place to errect my new, selfmade 40m/20m-dipole with a 6m gfk-pole. it was hard to find a shadowy spot, i had to operate this sota in pure sunlight ... and as i said before, it was really hot!! the view to the north (klagenfurt) and also to the south (karawanken) was breathtaking.

had quite a few contacts on 2m, there are very much slovenian sota-chasers around. on 40m and 20m i made some contacts, mostly with dl, hb9, ok, sp. the new antenna seemed to work well, although i did not notice much better signals than with my mp-1 antenna (which i normally use for sota).

kremsmauer 1604m (sota oe/oo-050)

2010-07-01T15:08:00.003+02:00

i was sota-active again after a long time today. the summit i chose today was on my "to-do-list" for a long time. this is what the mountain looks like from my home-qth.

there are several ways up the mountain, i chose the easiest one (from the south side). the first kilometers were done by mountainbike, even though there is prohibited to ride the bike in that area ... in austria you sometimes need to ignore traffic signs, hi!!!

shortly before i arrived at kaltau (where i wanted to hide my mountainbike) a forest ranger in his 4-wheel-drive stopped in fromt of me and told me to stop cycling immediately. i hid my bike and climbed "kremsmauer" by foot. the last 500 meters in height are short, but steep. my fitness is very poor this year, so i had my problems climbing up. but after 2 1/2 hours i reached the summit.

the propagation was not too good today, only 5 qso's on 7mhz and 5 qso's on 14mhz. on 2m i worked DL1DPA/M, who was stuck in a traffic jam between munich and salzburg.

even though the forest ranger told me not to ... i drove my bike down the mountain. luckily this time i was not caught.

damberg 807m (sota oe/oo-118) and schwarzkogel 838m (sota oe/oo-318)

2010-05-09T20:33:00.004+02:00

today was mother's day ... and as my mother is not too keen on celebrating that special day, i decided to go for a sota-expedition instead. today's targets were two summits close to the city of steyr. the first little hill is very popular and overrun by locals. also lot's of mountainbikers were up there. the main attraction up there is a tower with a nice platform on top. i've never been there before and i have to say it is a very nice place.

after working 23 stations on the first summit i started my walk to the second summit. i did a slight miscalculation of the time needed to get to schwarzberg (i was quicker than i thought). about 30 minutes before reaching the summit i passed a very nice meadow and decided to stay here for a while and enjoy the sunlight. that was the first time i every tried the fm radio-function on the vx-8. the built-in speaker has a very good audio ... also for fm radio. after 45 minutes of resting i climbed the second summit and got there in time.

on schwarzberg the weather was still fine, here there were less people around than on damberg. i sat down in the grass and started my activation. on 2m i even made a contact to oe/sb-268 (104 km). the signals on 40m were not too good today ... i tried to selfspot with the hungarian "spot sms gateway". on the first summit it worked without problem, but on the second summit my sms-messages did not receive "sotawatch" and i could not selfspot. after working also 23 stations on the second summit i had to walk back the same path i came from. feeling a little hungry i quickened my pace. when i passed the damberg-tower i made short contacts with oe5rtp and oe5iro (who did not catch me on that summit in the morning). on the drive home the first raindrops were falling down.

schabenreitnerstein 1143m (sota oe/oo-282) and herrentisch 1333m (sota oe/oo-072)

2010-05-02T18:17:00.001+02:00

despite the bad weather i did participate in international sota weekend as activator also. i shortened my route (i wanted to do three summits today) because of these conditions. on the first summit i quickly noticed that there was a ssb-contest going on ... bad luck for me. but i managed to make a few contacts. just as i wanted to leave the summit i saw heinz, oe5eep climbing up. we had a short chat and after he had put up his antenna i left for the next summit.

on herrentisch the weather was still bad, but luckily without rain. about one hour after i arrived at the summit, oe5eep came and joined me. he worked cw, i worked ssb. i could find clear spots on 7mhz, but the signals were very poor today.

on the way down to our cars heinz and me had a nice chat about sota and other hamradio related stuff.

AOEC 2010 (01/05/2010)

2010-05-01T12:18:00.004+02:00

@ 10:00 UTC

today i take part in the AOEC (All Austrian Contest) on 80/40/30m. i had to put up my antenna in heavy rain. i made myself comfortable on the backseat of my car and waited until the start of the contest at 05:00 utc. it seemed like a thousand stations calling on the 80m-band and i was quite surprised to get through to 63 stations in the first three hours of the contest. i could work all 9 states easily and also worked several government-stations with calls like OEY561, OEH5101, OEK9101. just for this contest i built an 80m λ/2-dipol which works great. with my 10 watts (IC-703) i was heard all over austria. the second part of the contest will start at 14:00 utc (for three hours) ... now i am recharging my battery and also myself. i am listening for sota-stations, but not much worked so far.

@ 18:00 UTC

the contest is over ... the second part of the contest was not too sucessful for me. only 34 more stations could be worked. in the last hour of the contest there was heavy QRN all over the 80m/40m-band. a thunderstorm was coming right to my location. five minutes before the contest was over (i could not make any contacts in the last 20 minutes due to the heavy QRN with S9+) i started to pack my stuff into the car again. dark clouds were threatening me ... and when i was half done the rain and storm came. i threw the remaining things into the car from afar and was lucky the thunderstorm did not come 30 minutes earlier.

the weather forecast for tomorrow is a little better than today ... i hope that i can activate one or two summits.

mittagsstein 1260m (sota oe/oo-077)

2010-04-24T16:40:00.002+02:00

one week before international sota-day i activated oe/oo-077. it's a nice little mountain that i climbed several times before. the climb took me about 1 1/2 hours and the path was very steep. on the way up i found a new geocache, that has been hidden there recently.

one could say it was a typical autumn day ... in spring!! thick fog in the valley and clear, blue sky on the summit. several people were at the top and were wondering why anyone would take so much electronic stuff up a mountain. i explained and when i told them that i can speak to people all over europe they were very surprised and astonished.

the oe5-sota-community was pretty active today ... oe5hce and oe5pen were also activating summits in the area. on 40m the conditions seemed pretty good, i received lot's of 57 and 59-reports. on 20m i made no contact. due to the sunny, hot weather (i forgot to take suntan lotion with me) i did not want to stay too long on the top. once again it has been a beautiful sota-day. hope to hear you all in a few days on international sota-weekend. i will be active as chaser on 01/05 and as activator on 02/05.

43 contacts with 10 countries on sota oe/oo-077

hirschwaldstein 1095m (sota oe/oo-083)

2010-04-20T13:24:00.002+02:00

my back pain which i'm dealing with since christmas, is a little better and so i decided to try my favourite mountain in the area ... hirschwaldstein. the walk up can be done in about 30 minutes, but due to the long, unintended winter-break it took me a little longer. i am not in very good shape at the moment and so i was pretty exhausted at the top.

on the top of the summit there is not very much space to build-up antennas and on weekends there are many people up there. so i choose to activate this one on a weekday. my equipment is still the same and i have no intention to change it ... it works great!

my first contact was a summit2summit-qso with ha7ul/p on HA/DD-017. it was a great start of my activation. on 40m there were not too much chasers qrv today, i only managed 10 qso's on 40m. on 20m nobody responded to my call on 14285, but i made two contacts with stations from scotland and wales.

after some local qso's on 2m i went back to the car. my aprs-beacon was not digipeated very often ... i think i need to start a digipeater/i-gate in my area.

15 contacts with 8 countries on oe/oo-083

hochkogel 500m (sota oe/oo-138)

2010-04-13T23:49:00.003+02:00

before i started for today's summit the weather was quite fine ... but when i reached the parking area it began to rain lightly. the way up the hill is very easy and can be done withing some minutes. up on the top there is a big childrens playground. at first i called on 2m and oe5pen came back to my cq-call. no other contact was possible on 145mhz.

when i started to errect my hf-antenna the rain was getting heavier, but i carried on anyway. i found a clear spot on 7.116 and started to call "cq sota". but when i thought that i heard someone anwering an italian station started to talk only 1khz below my qrg. i had no chance with my 10 watts. all the other frequencies were busy (also lot's of broadcasting stations still on 7.1mhz) ... so i changed to 14mhz. my clothes were slowly getting wet and so i just called for some minutes on the 20m-band. nobody seemed to hear me there although i posted a spot on sotawatch!?

so with just one qso, a non-vaild activation i quickly packed my equipment into the bag again before the rain could do any damage to my rig. i hope the next sota-tour will be more successful.

grillenparz 842m (sota oe/oo-316)

2010-03-24T19:52:00.001+01:00

after the short sota-activation yesterday i could not resist ... and activated another summit today. the weather was very nice, clear blue sky and lot's of sun simply made the sota-day perfect.

the ascend to this summit is rather easy, because there is a road leading almost up to the peak. only about 15 minutes of walking with only about 100m in height. but as my backpain (i have it since december last year) has not disappeared completely it's good that i chose this one.

i did some improvements to my vhf-antennas ... i now use a telescopic antenna for 2m/70cm with about 1m length. my qso-partners said it makes a big difference. for transmitting my aprs-beacon while walking up/down the summit i use a rubber-duck antenna. i will have to check out if it works satisfying.

on 2m i was able to make several contacts, even though it was a weekday. the 40m-band was very crowded and it was not too easy to find a clear spot without spoiling the other hams qso's. the shortwave-equipment stayed the same ... ic-703 and the mp-1 antenna. i think it's a perfect setup for sota (if you can live with the fact that the ic-703 can't do 2m/70cm).

the reception reports were quite good, most of the signals were copied loud and clear. on 14mhz there was a good skip to great britain and scandinavia. after 90 minutes and with 56 contacts in the log i switched off my rig and started the descend.

56 contacts with 19 countries on oe/oo-316

georgenberg 595m (sota oe/oo-131)

2010-03-23T11:13:00.002+01:00

it's good to be back after a long "sota-free" time. for a start i chose the summit right next to my home-qth, it took me about 15 minutes to get up there. during the ascent i already heard oe5pen/p calling from another summit.

the usual bunch of people replied to my cq-call, also oe5dsp (who passed the ham radio exam on the same day as me, that was in 2001). the weather was nice, finally spring is here. today i only had my handheld vx-8 with me, no activation on shortwave. the aprs-beacon was digipeated good on the summit.

i hope that on my future activations i will be qrv on shortwave again.

7 contacts with 1 country on oe/oo-131

karleck 1582m (sota oe/oo-240)

2009-12-10T14:20:00.004+01:00

the weather report for today was very good and so i decided to do another summit. in the next few days winter will come and so i am reducing my sota-activities a little bit. i had to drive about 45 minutes to spital/pyhrn, the parking area is on 1060m.

the walk up was not too difficult, the snow on the ground made it a little hard to find the right path. half way up there were lot's of huts, which fitted perfect in the winter landscape. the surrounding mountains (bosruck, pyhrgas) are over 2000m high, the view was great and i had to stop several times to take photos.

on the summit there was about 20cm of snow and the temperature was 0°C. but i found a nice place in the sun, so it was quite comfortable to play radio. the propagations on 7mhz were good today, the usual bunch of chasers were already waiting for me :-)

my aprs-beacon was not digipeated because the local digipeater/i-gate was off the air for some reason. on the way up i almost broke my telescopic antenna when it got caught in a tree.

32 contacts with 9 countries on oe/oo-240

kleinerberg 1287m (sota oe/oo-268)

2009-12-03T19:32:00.000+01:00

today i started early for my sota-activation. my plan was to activate two summits that have never been activated before. but on the way up i had to learn that the acces road is closed until may 2010. i tried to drive it up anyway, but after a few turns i decided to give it up (i did not want to wreck to my car).

then ... what to do?? without thinking about other options i decided to walk up the nearest mountain in the area. i already climbed that hill (kleinerberg) last year, so i had no problems in finding my way. it took me about one hour to climb up.

due to the change of summits i was on the peak early (0800 utc). and i was not sure about the sota-reference of this mountain. i sat down close to the huge tv/radio-tower and started to call cq on 40m. many thanks to ken, gm0axy who looked up the sota-reference for me.

the conditions on shortwave were terrible today ... only 5 qso's in 30 minutes were possible. and the tv-tower produced heavy qrm (both on vhf and hf), sometimes up to S9+60dB! my aprs-beacon was not digipeated as well, because there is no local digipeater around. the weather was perfect, the temperature was about +2°C and i had a comfortable shack! i'm sorry that it was not possible for me to activate oe/oo-225 and oe/oo-226 today, but i will definitely try next year.

5 contacts with 3 countries on oe/oo-268

hohe dirn 1134m (sota oe/oo-284)

2009-11-21T19:39:00.001+01:00

winter doesn't want to come this year it seems and so it's another beautiful day for summits on the air. it took me about 45 minutes to drive to the parking space which was at an altitude of almost 1000m. so today's sota-activation was not too strenuous. another 40 minutes of walking and the summit was mine.

not really, because there were several other people on the summit. it is a very popular hiking trail and on weekends it is even more popular. so i sat down about 10m away from the summit and started to errect my rig. during the two hours on the summit about 50+ people passed by.

actually i wanted to activate another summit after oe/oo-284, but i found such a nice and sunny place that i decided to stay here a little longer and do the other summit some other day. the conditions on 40m and 20m were good today, almost 80 qso's were possible... that's a new sota-record for me.

on 40m i made a contact with TS1PEP (Tunisia), but i am not sure if it was a real callsign or a pirate? on 17m i had a qso with RN1NU in NW Russia (Rep. of Karelia). the distance was over 2000km!

79 contacts with 19 countries on oe/oo-284

schmeißerkogel 1324m (sota oe/oo-266)

2009-11-14T15:33:00.003+01:00

another beautiful day with thick fog in the valley and bright, blue sky on the mountains. i never climbed that summit before ... but it was no problem to find the way up. i also took my vx-8 with the gps-unit with me, but unfortunately APRS did not work very well up there (too many high mountains surrounding the area).

actually close to oe/oo-266 there is another summit called TAMBERG, it's 200m higher than the other one ... but it is not in the sota-list. i visited it anyway and found out that it was worth walking up. there was a group of 20 people sitting next to the cross, enjoying the sun and having lot's of fun. after a short rest i headed for today's target.

it was a 45 minutes hike from the first peak. the last 15 minutes were not so enjoyable, because there was no marked path. but with the help of my gps i reached the summit walking cross- country. actually it was no peak like the other one, more something like a "forest on a plateau". i looked for a cross marking the summit, but i could not find find anything ... exept some deer and lot's of trees. so i unpacked my equipment on a sunny place in the middle of nowhere and started to call "CQ SOTA".

today's highlight was a qso with israel on the 17 meterband, that was wide open again. i called for some time on 17, but it was the only qso that was possible on the higher bands.

after almost two hours on the summit i began to feel a little cold, so i headed back to the car. i had another great sota-day, thanks to all operators that answered my calls.

41 contacts with 13 countries on oe/oo-266

alpstein 1443m (sota oe/oo-254) and trämpl 1424m (sota oe/oo-258)

2009-11-01T17:57:00.004+01:00

today the weather forecast predicted sunshine and mild temperatures ... and it was right. that was a real enjoyable sota-day. at the starting point the fog had almost disappeared, after one hour of steep walking i reached the ebenforstalm. it is a popular place in summer, but now it is closed for the winter.

from there it's another hour to the summit. i turned on my vx-8 and tried out my newly purchased gps-unit for aprs. i fixed the handheld to the side of my backpack, and it worked great. the aprs-beacons were sent out every three minutes. below there are photos of how i carried my vx-8 during the hike.

on the summit i unpacked my stuff which now consists of a battery with only 4,5ah. it's enough for my 10 watts and it is almost 1kg lighter than the one i previously used. but my equipment still weights too much :-)

on the first summit there was quite a pile-up, it took me one hour to please everyone. after that i headed for the second sota.

once again i used the vx-8 for sending out realtime aprs-beacons during walking. it took me about 40 minutes to reach my target. after a few local qso's on 145mhz i swiched to hf again. the usual bunch of chasers already waited for me.

the highlight of the day (besides the fabulous weather) was the opening on the 17 and 15 meterband. i had qso's with k2vv, john in missouri (8000km) and with n3ks, kam in maryland (7000km). i received great signal reports, bearing in mind i only used 10 watts.

unfortunately the local time after these qso's was 3:30pm, so i had to leave the summit and stop dxing. when i came back to my car it was already getting dusky, so it would have been a bad decision to stay at the summit longer.

55 contacts with 13 countries on oe/oo-254
33 contacts with 15 countries on oe/oo-258

georgenberg 595m (sota oe/oo-131)

2009-10-11T19:48:00.004+02:00

after almost 3 weeks without sota i did a short afternoon-walk today. i took my handheld with me and activated the nearest summit to my home-qth.

because i already had acitvated the summit this year there was no need to get four qso's into the log ... actually i only managed three contacts.

3 contacts with 1 country on oe/oo-131

großer priel 2515m (sota oe/oo-004)

2009-09-27T19:52:00.002+02:00

another sota-activation today ... due to the good stable autumn-weather my brother and me decided to hike up one of the highest mountains in upper austria.

we started in hinterstoder rather late (0600utc), but it was election day and we had to wait until the polling station has opened. the first kilometers were done by mountainbike, then we hid our bikes in the bushes and walked up. it took us 4 1/2 hours to climb the mountain, we did about 1900 meters in height. i am really happy that i had only my small handheld with me, because the walk up was really exhausting.

on the summit there were crowds of people, it almost seemed like there was some kind of sale up there :-)

i started to play radio, but only for about 10-15 minutes. in the meantime my brother decided to take a rest and almost fell asleep. after the needed 4 qso's were in the log i stopped the activation, joined my brother and enjoyed the stay on the summit. after one hour on the summit we headed back to our bikes. at 15:30 utc we were back at the car.

4 contacts with 1 country on oe/oo-004

nazogl 2057m (sota oe/st-099) and lueg 1967m (sota oe/st-126)

2009-09-19T19:57:00.013+02:00

today i made a trip to styria (oe6) and went up one of my favourite mountains. the walk up is very strenuous and extremely steep. the weather was good, only a small cloud did not want to leave the summit, so without sun it got cold very quickly.

on the second summit the cloud was gone and i enjoyed a long stay up there. i also found a geocache. the video will show you how my day was.

18 contacts with 6 countries on oe/st-099
25 contacts with 8 countries on oe/st-126

schieferstein 1206m (sota oe/oo-277)

2009-09-07T20:09:00.001+02:00

after yesterday's disappointment i did another activation today and ... thank god ... without contest-qrm. today's summit is a 45 minutes drive away from my home-qth. there is a road leading up quite high, so i only had to climb for about 1 hour.

on the summit it was quite confusing because there are two summit crosses within the radius of 500 meters. after i unpacked my stuff i asked another hiker which one was the real summit ... and i chose the right one. conditions on 40m seemed pretty good today, lot's of loud stations answering and giving me good reports.

on 20m i only made a couple of qso's, but i received good reports also on this amateur band. today i had 4 summit to summit qso's ... three of them on 40m.

on the summit i met some people who were very interested what i was doing with all the radio stuff. i took some time to explain it to them before starting my descent.

thanks for all the nice contacts today. i am looking forward to work you from the next summit ... i'm sure i will be activating another sota soon.

29 contacts with 9 countries on oe/oo-277

poppenberg 860m (sota oe/oo-313)

2009-09-06T20:14:00.004+02:00

today the sota-activation was no fun ... there was a contest going on and the 40m band was full of loud stations. there was no chance for my qrp-station to find a clear spot. on 20m the situation was almost the same, but on 14336 i was able to make 3 contacts. a local qso with oe5pen/p on sota oe/oo-301 made my activation a success (but only because i managed to get 5 qso's). then i called several times on 18mhz to avoid the contest-qrm, but nobody answered there.

after about 1 hour i left the summit a bit disappointed. the next time i will activate a summit on weekends i will definately check if there is a contest going on. with all these contesters it doesn't make fun ...

5 contacts with 4 countries on oe/oo-313

kruckenbrettl 1020m (sota oe/oo-297) and herndleck 1026m (sota oe/oo-295)

2009-09-03T20:18:00.005+02:00

almost a month without any sota-activation passed by ... but today i managed to activate two summits. the weather forecast was completely wrong and so i did not feel a single raindrop on my skin. although the fog looked frightening during the ascent, i had a nice "sota-day".

i found a nice place to build up my shack ... and started calling. i managed almost 20 qso's and the signal reports were quite good. but almost every station told me that the qsb was heavy.

as the weather was still good i decided to do the second sota also. the walk was easy and within 40 minutes i reached the summit. there was no cross up on the summit ... instead i found an old rusty ski-lift and several cows who wondered what i was doing here. i used an platform of the lift as my shack. it was very comfortable and the sun was still shining.

but the propagation on shortwave must have worsened during the last 75 minutes. i only managed 8 qso's on this summit and my signal seemed to get out very bad and once again the qsb was a big problem. so it came that several stations were exchanging signal reports with each other, believing it was me. i tried to manage and solve the problem but due to my weak signal i was not able to. so don't be angry if you are not in my log.

on 20m i was only able to make one contact ... but a special one. lz2rkg/p called me with his 5 watt qrp-station and we managed to make a good contact under very bad propagation.

17 contacts with 8 countries on oe/oo-297
8 contacts with 6 countries on oe/oo-295

zwillingskogel 1402m (sota oe/oo-064)

2009-08-10T22:03:00.008+02:00

the weather forecast predicted rain for the afternoon, so i got up early to do another sota-activation. i drove to grünau im almtal and left the car at the parking area near the railway station. the ascent took me about two hours and was very steep.

on the way up i had my first qso with oe5hce/p on 145mhz ... he was activating a summit close to zwillingskogel, only some kilometers away. the first chaser-points for today were mine. on the summit the clouds already began to organize, but only a few drops during the whole activation.

even though it was cloudy and the sun was not shining too much it was very hot. my first qso's on the summit were on 145mhz with oe5iro, oe5pen and oe5hce. then i changed to shortwave. at the same oe5hce was also qrv from windhagkogel on hf, so it must have been a good opportunity for the chasers to get some points.

on 14mhz i did not manage a single qso ... i have no idea what was the reason.

41 contacts with 12 countries on oe/oo-064

pfannstein 1423m (sota oe/oo-061), rauher kalbling 1381m (sota oe/oo-065) and herrentisch 1333m (sota oe/oo-072)

2009-08-05T21:51:00.002+02:00

yesterday it was raining all day long and the temperatures cooled down to about 20°c. perfect weather for sota! the ascent to the first summit took me about 1 1/2 hours and i passed the gradnalm-hut. i took an unmarked and rather unknown path up ... it's much nicer than the normal path. only the hunters and a few locals know the path.

on the summit the clouds did not disappear and so it got cold with all the sweaty stuff on my skin. but i made over 40 contacts before i moved on to the next summit for today.

it's only a walk of 30 minutes to the second summit and there is not much space to errect antennas. but with my small vertical it was no problem. but i was not able to tune my antenna to a good swr ... the swr-meter showed me crazy, unbelievable things. i managed to make 8 contacts before i left the place.

actually i only wanted to do the two summits, but the problem with my antenna made me walk to a third summit to try if the problem had gone. when i built up the antenna i noticed that one of the screws fixing the coil was loose and after fixing it the antenna worked great again. it was a big relief that the problem could be solved so easily.

also some contacts on 28mhz possible, but not very loud signals. it was almost 1700 local time when i packed my stuff and headed back to the car.

again i sent the actual operating frequencies along with my aprs-beacon and it worked fine. but i think that only a few aprs-chasers had a look to aprs.fi ... maybe in the future there will be more people watching out for me on aprs. on the last summit for today i almost had emptied my batteries of the vx-8 ... so i could not send all aprs-beacons.

42 contacts with 13 countries on oe/oo-061
8 contacts with 3 countries on oe/oo-065
30 contacts with 11 countries on oe/oo-072

gaisberg 1267m (oe/oo-271) and dürres eck 1222m (oe/oo-276)

2009-07-27T12:11:00.001+02:00

after the mountainbike-tour i did yesterday i was a little bit tired today. but i had no choice ... i already posted an alert on sotawatch for today. the first meters were very tough, but once i found my walking rhythm, it was no problem, my legs stopped hurting and the summits came nearer and nearer.

once again a beautiful path, i never walked up the mountain before. most of the path is in the forest, making the ascent a little more comfortable ... about 30 degrees and no sign of clouds. the sweat was flowing like a river. after 1 1/2 hours i reached the first summit of today.

it was good that there were no people around, because i needed all the space up on the summit for my radio equipment. i spent about 1 1/2 hours before i walked to the second summit.

i was rather surprised to reach the second summit within 20 - 30 minutes, it looked much farther on the map. i spotted a nice shady place a little off the summit (it would have been to hot sitting in the sun).

today i tried to send the actual operating frequencies along with my aprs-beacon and it seemed to work fine. so on the next summits i will use the aprs-beacon for spotting myself. i hope that the aprs-chasers will watch out for me on aprs.fi.

25 contacts with 10 countries on oe/oo-271
23 contacts with 9 countries on oe/oo-276

hochbuchberg 1273m (oe/oo-075) and schoberstein 1285m (oe/oo-073)

2009-07-26T12:03:00.007+02:00

today i did a mountainbike-tour and took my yaesu vx-8 with me. i made my way up to the first summit and almost reached it in time (alert on sotawatch).

after a short rest i made the required four qso's and left for the second summit. i passed the "grünburger hut" and drove my bike to the "schoberstein hut". from there it's only about 3 minutes walking to the summit.

i could make qso's with oe5hce/p and oe2wnl/p who were on a fieldday on the kitzsteinhorn (3032m). that's about 150km in distance, very good result for using only my small handheld. also another sota-activator was on an summit in berchtesgaden and we could manage a good contact.

the downhill was great and i had a wonderful day.

4 contacts with 1 country on oe/oo-075
7 contacts with 2 countries on oe/oo-073

kleiner priel 2136m (oe/oo-189)

2009-07-22T11:53:00.016+02:00

after heavy rainfalls and floodings in the last weeks, today the sun was shining and the temperatures raised over 30 degrees. a perfect day for sota ...

starting in hinterstoder at an altitude of 600m, the path was very, very, very steep. the sign at the parking area said it would take 4 1/2 hours to reach the summit, but i only needed 3 1/4 hours.

i placed a geocache up on the summit that has been in very bad condition, so another reason to choose this summit. the conditions were again not too good, i had lot's of problem with the deep and quickly changing qsb.

on vhf i made my first sota-qso with inge, oe5iro. she is new to sota and already planning her first sota-tour. it's good to meet new people that are interested in sota.

on hf i made the usual contacts with the sota chasers, but today i also made several summit2summit-qso's.

28 contacts with 10 countries on oe/oo-189

spering 1605m (oe/oo-237)

2009-07-09T11:48:00.006+02:00

after the dissapointment on the last sota i had to activate another one today. actually i wanted to go to a summit called schillereck, but the weather was quite bad again so i decided to activate this summit thas was a bit lower in altitude. during the ascent rain started falling, it was no problem for me because most of the path is was in the wood and so the rain did not disturb me much.

the walk was rather hard and steep ... nearly three hours and 1100 meters in height later i reached the summit. i quickly started to unpack my equipment, because the weather did not look too good. just as i was ready to call cq heavy rain began to fall on the summit. i had to seek shelter under some mountain pines and i covered my radio with my rainjacket. as quickly as the rain came it went away and fortunately i could start my activation.

lot's of stations were responding to my calls on 145mhz, 7mhz and 14mhz ... the logbook was quickly filled with several callsigns. on 28mhz i was able to make 14 contacts, even with sv8/dl3sba/p who heard me calling by coincidence. he is on vacation in corfu and will activate several summits on the island during his stay. the longer i stayed on the summit the weather was getting better. at 1325 utc, when i made qrt, nearly all the clouds were gone and the sun was shining.

my new yaesu vx-8 worked well on 145mhz, i got good audio reports from all stations. also the aprs-beacon was digipeated without problems. the descent took me 2 hours and now i'm pretty exhausted ... but it was a great day up on the summit with lot's of nice qso's. thanks to all who contacted me.

54 contacts with 14 countries on oe/oo-237

wurbauerkogel 858m (oe/oo-314)

2009-07-07T11:44:00.002+02:00

another activation of a small hill about 40km south of my home-qth. the wurbauerkogel is a very popular place for people to go to. so i came here during the week to avoid big crowds of people.

walking the last meters up the hill, i reached the summit and enjoyed the nice view and the big mountains surrounding the area. but it was very loud and noisy up here, there were lot's of children around. also there were several trucks bringing goods for the restaurant. and it is also not a good area for sota, because the grassy areas around are all "private property" ... so i had to erect my antenna next to the parking space.

my next sota will definately be a "real" summit again ... i do not like such touristy places.

the conditions must have been pretty poor again, not very much contacts today. very heavy qsb made reception rather hard. i also wanted to try my new yaesu vx-8 handheld, but no one was responding to my cq-calls. my aprs-signals were not received by a digipeater either.

9 contacts with 6 countries on oe/oo-314

maisenkögerl 945m (oe/oo-095)

2009-07-01T11:35:00.004+02:00

made a short visit to friedrichshafen last weekend and now i know that i'm not the only one that is addicted to amateur radio. it was impressing to see so much people and radio-stuff there. i bought myself a new antenna for sota ... the MP-1

today i gave this new, small vertical antenna a try and activated yet another small hill in my area. the antenna is very compact, small and not too heavy. that is the main reason why i purchased this little thing ... because i got tired of carrying the heavy buddipole up the mountains.

the optional tripod works great and gives the antenna the needed stability. maybe it's not enough under stormy conditions, but today it was no problem. the antenna is very easy to tune from 10mhz to 30mhz, but on 7mhz it is a bit difficult. i had to use the internal tuner of the ic-703 to get a satisfying result.

actually i was expecting to get much poorer signal reports than on previous activations with my buddipole, but the antenna did surprisingly well. i received a whole bunch of stations and also got nice signal reports. bearing in mind that i only run qrp into the small antenna i was pretty satisfied with the result.

i think now i have found a good and light antenna for my future alpine sota-activations.

27 contacts with 10 countries on oe/oo-095

schoberstein 1285m (oe/oo-073)

2009-06-09T12:27:00.008+02:00

one day before heading to italy for the weekend i decided to activate schoberstein. the weather-forecast for today was rather good. the hike was steep but easy to walk and i reached the summit after about 70 minutes. after enjoying the fabulous view i went back to the schoberstein-hut, which is located about 2 minutes before the summit.

there is a wide open space, perfect for amateur radio. so i settled down on a bench and started unpacking my stuff. there were lots of people resting at the hut, one of them even asked me if i am tracking bears with my equipment.

again a lot of qsb on the frequency, but after about 10 minutes of calling my signal must have improved, because signal reports were getting better. from croatian stations i received only 5/9 - reports. but then suddenly about 20 cows spotted me and seemed jolly interested in my antenna. i was afraid that they would break it and so i had to change the location. that's why i disappeared so sudden off the air. i'm sorry for that.

the other location was about 100m away, but there was no cellphone-reception. so i could not self-spot and it seemed that no one could hear me on 7mhz and on 14mhz. so i tried 28mhz and made one qso to cyprus. no other contacts on 10 meters were possible.

during my activation i met oe5gzm, who was hiking with a big group. on 145mhz no one came back to my cq-calls. on the way down it started to rain, but because of the path being mostly in the forest i didn't get very wet.

17 contacts with 7 countries on oe/oo-073

hamberg 854m (oe/oo-109)

2009-06-06T12:22:00.011+02:00

felt sota-fever once again and made my way up to hamberg. the summit is easy to reach and not very far to go ... if you start on the western side of the mountain. i looked on different maps and decided to try to go up on the eastern side, as this side is a little closer to my home-qth.

found the parking-place without problems but i was looking out for something that looked like a path or some- thing ... but i found nothing like that. so i decided to go straight up (this means cross-country) to the summit.

the way up was very steep, but it did only take me 20 minutes to reach the summit. actually i'm not sure if i was on the highest point of the summit, the area was very wide and lot's of trees up there. i was lucky no huntsman was around ... i think he would not have been too happy about me walking through the forest off the paths. luckily i saw no one, except some deers and insects during this activation.

i spoke to several stations on 145mhz, also to erwin (oe5pen/p) who was activating two summits in the area close to me. also heinz (oe5hdn) was calling in and we had contacts on 145mhz, 50mhz, 28mhz and 14mhz.

on 40 meters the conditions must have been poor again ... mostly i got very poor signal reports. but i managed a whole bunch of contacts. i was very happy to make my first contact with macedonia on a sota-activation. thanks to z35m for the qso. during the activation it started to rain, but it stopped again after a few minutes. then periodically the sun came out of the clouds.

23 contacts with 9 countries on oe/oo-109

radingberg 901m (oe/oo-306)

2009-05-28T12:58:00.005+02:00

today was not a good day for sota ... cloudy and very cold temperatures did not make it easy for me.

the way up to the summit was very steep, but only 30 minutes to walk. on top of radingberg there was a niceview to the town of windischgarsten. the conditions today seemed rather poor, only 5 contacts possible today.

after nearly one hour of operation on on 7 and 14mhz i stopped the activation and started the descend. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call.

5 contacts with 5 countries on oe/oo-306

windhagkogel 1334m (oe/oo-070)

2009-05-20T12:47:00.006+02:00

actually i wanted to activate this summit on monday, but on this day there was a high risk of thunderstorms. today it was a nice day with very hot temperatures for this time of year. all the other summits activated so far were easy and not too far to walk.

but not this one ... i wanted to check how hard it is for me to carry my heavy backpack (about 12-14kg) up a very steep mountain. i started at 550m and the summit is on 1334m, so almost 800m altitude difference.

the terrain was very steep, wet and slippery. after about one hour of very steep walking i started to get rather exhausted ... and then i saw my destination for today.

as you can see it seems that the summit is very far away. but after another hour of walking i finally reached the summit of windhagkogel. since last week there is also a geocache on the summit, so i quickly began to look for this cache. after i logged my visit i started to unpack my backpack and built up my equipment and the antenna. not very much people up there today, so i could errect my antenna close to the summit.

after two local qso's on 2m i started calling on 40m. as usual i spotted myself on sotawatch and soon after that several stations called. generally the conditions on 40m were not good, only weak signals. after another qso on 2m with a mobile station from lower austria i changed to 20m and was surprised that the signals there were quite good. lot's of stations from the uk and nw-europe.

after that i changed to 10m and made some qso's with stations from austria, england, norway, russia and scottland. the band was open to the uk and it made fun working on 10 meters. luckily m6mof filmed parts of our qso and put it on youtube. after two hours of operation on different bands i stopped the activation and started the descend. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call.

29 contacts with 11 countries on oe/oo-070

schabenreitnerstein 1143m (oe/oo-282)

2009-05-08T12:42:00.001+02:00

not a very good sota-day today! about 10 minutes after i left the car i noticed that i forgot my waterbottle. after thinking about canceling the activation i decided to climb the mountain without water. the steep path leads me up the schabenreitnerstein in 45 minutes.

on the summit it is very rocky and almost no place to erect my antenna. also there are more people up there today as i thought. so i looked for (and found instantly) a quieter place close to the summit.

conditions must have been very poor today, i only managed to make 6 contacts. but today i had my first qso ever on 50mhz with oe5smu, who was calling cq on 50.151 lonely. nothing on 14mhz and no signals on 28mhz. before leaving the summit i tried 7mhz again, but no response.

hopefully the next months will bring better conditions ... and i will take water with me the next time. but i made it without dehydration back home. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call.

6 contacts with 5 countries on oe/oo-282

brandkogel 825m (oe/oo-322)

2009-05-02T12:35:00.004+02:00

today was international sota activity day ... and so i packed my stuff and did another activation. i came home in the morning from work (nightshift), did not sleep too long and so i chose a summit that was easy to reach and not much walking was necessary. the walk up to brandkogel was done within 15 minutes from the carpark.

the setup was built up very quick ... i have some skill now after the last operations on different summits. there was no answer on 145mhz, so i started to call "cq" on 7.155mhz and after i spotted myself on sotawatch with the mobile phone there were lot's of stations calling.

after 30 minutes i changed to 14mhz, there was another swedish sota station on 14.285mhz audible very weak, but not enough to try a contact. at first i did not hear the station so i accidentally called on the same qrg. after i realized that i changed a little higher on the 20m band.

i noticed that the conditions on the high frequencies were good so i also tried to call "cq sota" on 28mhz, but no answer. even a spot on sotawatch did not help. on 21mhz i managed a contact with a station from serbia, but the heavy qsb made it a bit difficult to copy all the information.

the highlight of the day was a contact with oh5ss in finland. he was running 5 watts into a longwire and we managed a good qso. before i started to pack my stuff into the backpack i tried 7mhz again ... but there was heavy qrm all over the band from several broadcasting stations. hopefully the bc-station will leave soon!

22 contacts with 11 countries on oe/oo-322

pernecker kogel 1080m (oe/oo-084)

2009-04-27T14:39:00.005+02:00

it seems that you can get easily addicted to sota. only two days after activating my last summit i started another activation ... this time i climbed the pernecker kogel at 1080m.

the ascent was rather easy because of the comfortable path (not steep, ...), only the weight of my backpack was a problem. i'm still not used to carrying so much stuff up the hills. but i made it up the summit and started unpacking my equipment close to the highest peak. no other people in the area ... so perfect conditions for a sota-activation!

after successful 22 qso's on 40m i tried calling on 20m once again. luc (on6dsl) spotted me on sotawatch, but it seems that no one could hear me. i was also calling on 17m, but there was no contact possible as well. as it was weekday i had no luck on 2m as well ... i called cq several times during the activation, but not a single qso on 145mhz.

thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call. also a big thanks to all who spotted me on sotawatch and on the dx-cluster.

24 contacts with 12 countries on oe/oo-084

hirschwaldstein 1095m (oe/oo-083)

2009-04-25T14:33:00.003+02:00

i did my first sota-activation on hirschwaldstein in december 2008. today i hiked up there again and brought my shortwave-equipment with me. i started my walk near an old castle called "altpernstein". it took about 35 minutes to reach the top, today it was rather crouded up on the summit.

not very much space up on the summit ... but enough to put up my buddipole-antenna for hf. but at first i made a contact with oe5pen/p who was activating sota oe/oo-065 at the same time. after a few local qso's on 2m i changed to 40m. meanwhile a family with three children also reached the top and the kids were very curious what i was doing up here.

the last two qso's were made on 20m ... very weak signals from scotland, but i was able to copy all needed information. i spent over 2 hours up on the summit and enjoyed a very nice saturday evening. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call.

15 contacts with 6 countries on oe/oo-083

georgenberg 595m (oe/oo-131)

2009-04-16T14:25:00.005+02:00

the weather man is predicting bad weather for the weekend so i decided to do a weekday sota-activation. the summit i activated today is the nearest from my home qth ... georgenberg on 595m above sealevel. from my home it took me about 20 minutes to the top.

i also made a video of the activation. it took me some time to edit the film because my computer is not the latest model and so countless pc-crashes spoiled the video editing.

up on the summit there is a nice church and a restaurant. there is also a road leading up the hill, but i took the hiking-path to get to the summit. as it was a weekday today there were no people around, on weekends it can get rather crowded.

the activation area is a nice place and today also with warm sunny weather. first i tried if someone was listening on 145mhz, beut only one qso could be managed. so after some unsuccssful cq-calls i started to tune my ic-703 to 40m.

on 14mhz no contact was possible. i hope that conditions will improve in the next few months on the higher bands. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call.

16 contacts with 6 countries on oe/oo-131

grillenparz 842m (oe/oo-316)

2009-04-04T14:17:00.004+02:00

finally spring is here ... and the fine weather is a good reason to do a sota activation. today i went up a small hill close to my home-qth. i chose to ascend from the eastern side, because there is a road leading up almost to the top. i had to walk only about 15 minutes.

i'm still doing some experiments about what is the best way to carry a buddipole-antenna up a mountain, that is why i'm choosing these mountains where i don't have to walk too far. on the summit i met a guy i haven't seen for ages ... we had a nice chat before i started unpacking my stuff.

as you can see on the photo ... my shack was very comfortable. the snow was gone completely and i could sit on the grass without getting very wet. the grillenparz is a very popular mountain for hikers so people came and went and were very interested what i was doing. even two little children made it up the mountain and were very surprised to find such a big antenna up here.

after completing two qso's on 145mhz i switched to 7mhz and found a clear spot. it seemed that conditions were a little better than on my last activation because i got better signal reports. at 0820 utc about 6-7 stations called at the same time ... my first sota pile-up!

on 14mhz i only had a local qso with oe5pen, no other contact were possible there. i hope that conditions will improve in the next few months on the higher bands. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call.

13 contacts with 8 countries on oe/oo-316

zillhöhe 536m (oe/kt-243)

2009-03-27T13:38:00.010+01:00

my first sota-activation on hf, which took place yesterday on kumitschkogel (oe/kt-224), was not very successful. i could only manage to complete 3 qso's on 7mhz because of heavy qrm. the frequencies under 7.1mhz were very busy and there was no chance for my qrp-signal. over 7.1mhz there were a whole bunch of broadcasting stations on air ... so no chance there as well. on 14mhz i could not manage a single qso.

so on friday i decided to try my luck again and activated zillhöhe near the city of klagenfurt. i went to carinthia to visit my brother for the weekend.

the climb was not very hard, because there is a road leading up the mountain and i had to walk only about 10 minutes. my ic-703, the battery and the kenwood th-d7 were stored in a backpack and the buddipole-antenna was carried in the original bag. for longer walks i will have to think of a better way of carrying.

on the top the weather was fine, but the cars on the nearby highway were very noisy and disturbing ... making this nice place a little bit less beautiful.

after setting up my equipment i started calling cq on 7.118 but no answer. so i spotted myself on sotawatch with my mobile phone.

propagation was very poor today ... so my signal was not getting out very well. it was hard to manage the different contacts with stations from f,dl and hb9. highlight of the day was the contact with la1tpa, who came through very weak on my trx. but we managed a good contact.

after some qso's on 7mhz i turned on my kenwood th-d7 radio and had two contacts on 145mhz with local om's. my aprs-signal on 144.800 was digipeated as well.

on 14mhz no contact was possible, at the same time f/dd6do/p was qrv on 14.285 ... but i heard nothing. i tried to call "cq" on 14.287, but no one answered. after some minutes a russian station started calling "cq" on my frequency ... that was the indication to stop the activation and head back to the car.

thanks to all operators for giving me a call ... i enjoyed my first sota-activation on hf very much. i'm sure that the next activation will take place soon!

3 contacts with 3 countries on oe/kt-224
9 contacts with 6 countries on oe/kt-243

hochbuchberg 1273m (oe/oo-075)

2009-01-25T13:34:00.008+01:00

actually i wanted to do this sota-activation a day later, but i saw on sotawatch that another sota-activation was taking place today ... so i decided to activate hochbuchberg today.

started on an altitude of 580m and after 50 minutes of walking a very steep and icy path i reached a hut called "grünburger hütte". this is a very touristy place and not only in summer but also in winter there are lot's of people there. so i pass the hut without stopping and head for the summit.

from the hut to the summit it's another 30 minutes of rather steep walking and so at 1240utc i started calling cq on 144mhz. as today is sunday it's not very difficult to get the required four qso's into the logbook.

after 6 qso's i stopped for a while to consume food and drink hot tea. i stayed on the summit and waited for oe3bga/p. at 1350utc i heard him calling cq on 145.500 ... we managed two nice qso's (2m and 70cm).

after spending almost two hours on the summit i chose a different route as the way up was very icy. that was a good idea even though i had to walk a little bit further. thanks to all operators who called me.

8 contacts with 1 country on oe/oo-075

herrentisch 1333m (oe/oo-072)

2009-01-17T13:31:00.006+01:00

today i wanted to activate three summits but on the way up i quickly recognised that my body wants to rest. so, after the sota-activation yesterday, i decided to do only one summit ... herrentisch.

the nice walk up to the gradnalm on 1240m asl took me approximately 1 hour and from there it's only 15 more minutes to todays destiation.

on the summit the weather was nice and there were about 20cm of snow on the ground. i started to call cq and oe5pen answered. he read about my activation and also decided to activate a summit in his area. next operator was oe5hce with the call dl/oe5hce/m, we managed a good qso both only using small handheld radios. the distance between us was over 100km.

my last qso for the day was with oe3bmb in lower austria. i also tried to work on 433mhz, but there was too heavy qrm from some data services. so i did not try to call there. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call ... but especially to oe5pen/p.

5 contacts with 2 countries on oe/oo-072

koglerstein 1257m (oe/oo-274)

2009-01-16T13:30:00.000+01:00

today i wanted to activate two summits, but i failed. i started my hike at an altitude of 670m near a village called molln. because this is a very popular mountain for hikers the path was broad and easy to find. but it was very icy ... that is why it was hard for me to climb up. i only fell down once, hi!

after one hour of walking i reached the summit of schoberstein ... i called cq for almost 45 minutes but not a single answer. i feared that my radio was damaged, but my aprs-beacons on 144.800 were digipeated without problems. a little disappointed i packed my radio into the backpack and went for the second sota.

the hike to koglerstein was no problem and took me about 30 minutes. on this summit there was no wind and so it was much more comfortable than on the first summit. i started calling cq on 2m and after a while the first qso was in the log. i was so glad that my radio was working well. no sign of damage.

with oe5jjl i had qso's on 2m and 70cm ... getting good reports on both bands. after my qso with an om in bavaria i was convinced that my radio was not broken, hi! after 45 minutes i stopped the activation with 6 qso's in my logbook.

the descent was very hard. in the forrest the path was icy like an ice-skating rink. so i had to walk next to the path in the snow ... there it was much better. i made it down without any injuries. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call.

6 contacts with 2 countries on oe/oo-274

hochsalm 1406m (oe/oo-063)

2009-01-06T13:25:00.002+01:00

today i activated the summit hochsalm. the weather on this public holiday was fine, but again very cold. the car park was situated 730m above sealevel and for the first 30 minutes i had to walk on gravel road.

this picture was taken at an altitude of 1100m, some meters higher the sun made it through the clouds. at the summit there was clear, blue sky and a sea of clouds underneath me ... just fantastic!

after changing my sweated clothes i unpacked my sota-equipment and started calling cq. due to the windy conditions my fingers soon started to get numb, so i had to put the gloves back on.

today it was quite easy to get the four qso's into my logbook, also oe5hce (the sota-expert) was one of the answering operators. as you can see i used the cross at the summit as my "shack desk".

after 30 minutes of sota i enjoyed a hot cup of tea and an apple at the summit. the walk down was done without problems. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call.

7 contacts with 1 country on oe/oo-063

mittagsstein 1260m (oe/oo-077)

2009-01-03T13:22:00.000+01:00

the first sota in 2009 and it was a great hike up there. i started from steinbach/ziehberg at an altitude of 675m and it took me about an hour to get to the summit. snow was no problem, about 15-20cm on the top of mittagsstein.

unfortunately i forgot my digicam so there are no photos available! the snapshot below is from may 2005.

even though there were temperatures below freezing it was not too cold. the sun and the clear blue sky made it very comfortable on the summit. the required four qso's were done within 30 minutes and i tried to get some more stations into my logbook ... without success.

because of the icy surface the descent was a little bit difficult, but i returned to the car without any injuries. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call.

4 contacts with 1 country on oe/oo-077

schabenreitnerstein 1143m (oe/oo-282)

2008-12-27T13:18:00.005+01:00

my second sota-activation, with nearly the same weather conditions as at my first sota. about 0 degrees and overcast, even though the weather forecast predicted sun. but it didn't stop me from this activation.

started the climb from ziehberg, about 750m above sea level. there were only about 5cm of snow on the ground, so it was no problem to get up the mountain with regular hiking shoes. on the summit there also was not much snow ... only 20cm.

after 45 minutes of walking i reached the summit, had a nice chat with another hiker before i started putting up my radio equipment. it took me some cq-calls before the first qso was established.

it wasn't too easy to get the required four qso's into my logbook because it was saturday midday and probably all amateurs were having lunch. but after 50 minutes i completed my fourth qso and started the descent. it was good to do some hiking again because it wasn't too warm up there ... but the thermos jug with warm tea helped a bit. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call.

4 contacts with 2 countries on oe/oo-282

hirschwaldstein 1095m (oe/oo-083)

2008-12-12T18:06:00.005+01:00

on dec. 12th, 2008 i activated my first summit. i chose hirschwaldstein because it is one of the nearest mountains from my home-qth and i often go up there in wintertime. i started my hike at an altitude of 800m, the summit is 1095m above sea level and it took me about 30 minutes to get to there.

after about 30 minutes on the summit my fingers were almost frozen so i stopped the activation. the temperature was about 0 degrees. thanks to all operators who answered my cq-call.

4 contacts with 1 country on oe/oo-131