Oscar and I have been walking up this mountain every summer for the past five or six years now, continuously improving our time. So I was expecting this to be an easy ascent, and hoping for a slight improvement on last years 1 hour 45 minutes. No such luck; seems two and a half years of home office, indoor activities and a bout with the pandemic has taken its toll. We reach the top in just a bit over 2 hours; guess I have some working out to do!
But as always, the hard work of getting up there is quickly forgotten when you reach the top. Especially on a clear day where you have 1/6 of the Norwegian mainland within line of sight! So; nice conditions to play radio!
I’ve been working on decreasing the weight of my backpack when I go SOTA – down from the ridiculous 19 kg it had reached before my trip to Hvittingen in July. Built a new BalUn and a simple wire dipole for 20m that can be held up by a small and light weight fishing pole. And replaced the FT-991A with the X6100 (would have brought the FT-817ND, but with at least 100 people on the summit on an average Sunday, I decided to go digital this time – and I’m still waiting for my DigiRig for the little Yeasu). Also replaced the Surface Go with a really small Chinese palmtop PC.
The combination of radio, antenna, PC and location worked really well, and in just 12 minutes with the X6100 running 5W on 20m, I had the following FT4 contacts (FT8 was to crowded) in the log:
- PD5MVH, Holland
- II5SMM, Italy
- TM78DP, France
- DL/ON4DN, Belgium in Germany
- HA5VZ, Hungary
- F4ACR, France
- F5HVI, France
- PA1ZT, Holland
