SOTA: LA/AH-007 – Varden, Håøya

First time activating an island today. Håøya sits at the narrowest point in the Oslo fjord, and is just a 15 minutes ferry ride from Drøbak. The summit rests at 231m which sounded like a proverbial “walk in the park”. What I forgot to consider is that in the case of an island, you literally start out from 0 meters above sea level! So we spent a little over an hour getting up – on less then well established tracks. The app “Norgeskart” (Norwegian map) came to the rescue more then once! And really nothing in the way of a view from the summit either. But I did get to spend the day out with my son, so I’m happy! So, if you’re thinking about it; go for it; but bring good company 🙂

Nice conditions for playing radio, but not much in the way of DX. After some 20 minutes on FT8/FT4 with the FT817 running 5W into my home built 20m inverted-V dipole, I had the following in the log:

  • OK1TRJ Michal, Czech Republic
  • R3DCX Dmitry, Russia
  • IU2ICJ Maurizio, Italy
  • HG8LXL Laszlo, Hungary
  • F4JHO Levasseur, France
  • UT1KY Pavlo, Ukraine
  • RA9LL Victor, Asiatic Russia
  • MW7BXN Peter, Wales
  • OE5GA Gerald, Austria
  • IZ4OUL Primo, Italy