Catching up on documenting my SOTA adventures. Walked up Vestre Vealøs on a nice and sunny last of August. Parked the car at Store Skifjell (59.211, 9.716) and followed the gravel road all the way to the top; a total of a little less then 360m elevation and a round trip of about 9km. Very nice walk on a very nice day, though for most of the way up/down all you see is forrest. But the view from the summit more than makes up for all the trees you see getting there! Decided to do what’s referred to as “real radio” at my local club – that is to say SSB/phone and not FT8 :-). With the 20m dipole and the FT817ND (on 2.5W thanks to the less then intuitive way this radio indicates its power setting), it took 3 different frequencies, and as many self-spots, but I finally managed to log the following 5 contacts:
- EA7GV Jose, Spain
- CT1DIZ Jose, Portugal
- HA7WA Viktor, Hungary
- EA4BQG Guillermo, Spain
- EA3Y Mandel, Spain
Also self-spotted on 145.300 FM simplex, both on SOTAWatch and Facebook, but didn’t hear anything. I think I’ll have to build a portable VHF antenna if I’m to have any hope activating on VHF.
