SOTA: VK3/VC-004 Mt Observation Activation Attempt

SOTA
VK3/VC-004 Mt Observation
18th May, 2013

I decided to try to activate Mt Observation, near Marysville. The summit is actually exactly on the border of the Yarra Ranges National Park and the Yarra State forest, so I figured I could also activate the NP at the same time.

As it hadn't been activated yet, I figured it must be difficult to get to, as there has been a quite high level of summit activation activity in VK3 in 2013.

I was right.

Trans Tasman Contest 80 Metre Phone 2013

I had a great evening on the radio operating QRP (5 watts) in the Trans Tasman 80 Metre Phone Contest on the 11th May. It ran for six hours, with the 5 best one hour blocks being used for the final score.
VK Contest Log was used for logging and did an excellent job.

SOTA: Mt Hickey VK3/VN-015

Mt Hickey
VK3/VN-015
21st April, 2013

Mt Hickey is an easy drive from Melbourne.

It is situated just south east of Seymour. You turn right off the Hume Highway at Ennis Road and just follow the road up until you get to Phone Track. Turn right and follow it up to the summit.
It goes to dirt fairly quickly, but it is well maintained and any vehicle should be able to get to the summit in the dry. When wet, I would advise caution in a normal car, though you probably should still be able to make it.

There is a couple of commercial installations at the top, and room to park the car just down the road. I walked over to the west side where there are some nice trees to throw an antenna into.

It was late and cold when I got there. I set up my ft-817 and wire dipole for 40 metres and called CQ for a while with no success. Finally I got a contact with weak signal levels, and the conversation attracted a couple of others who could only just hear me. In the end I only got the required 4 contacts before dark was falling and it was starting to drizzle.

I called it a day, packed up, and drove down to the highway in the dark.

Not the best activation as I also forgot to take some photo's, but at least I got the points on the board.

73

Cambo

Mornington Peninsula National Park

The weekend of November 17/18, 2012 was the Victorian National Parks Weekend to promote activation by radio amateurs operating portable from these parks to earn points toward the Keith Roget Memorial National Parks Award and also to give others the chance to work the National Parks to earn points toward the award also.



The award is managed by Amateur Radio Victoria and is popularly sort after here in VK.

There are 45 parks on the award list, with 23 of them being known to be activated by VK hams for the weekend.

I decided to activate the Mornington Peninsula National Park as it is not too far (2 hours drive) from my QTH, and also it had not been activated much in the past.

I made 8 contacts QRP (less than 5 watts) including 2 other parks - Barmah N.P. and Kinglake N.P.

Rig was my Yaesu FT-817 and a 1/2 wave dipole tuned for 40 metres.

Wx was great and enjoyed the day.

73

Cambo

SOTA Operating Practices

Being new to Summits On The Air, I posted a few questions on the SotaWatch reflector (link to SOTA sites in Footer) and got some great replies from experienced operators.

The Questions I asked were:

1. I was wondering if there is a "standard" and/or recognisable way to call CQ for both SSB and CW for SOTA activations, and also give the summit number.
    
2. As there are no band or mode multipliers for SOTA, how do activators decide on frequency and mode for the activation? Do you try to do multiple bands and modes, or just one band/mode?
    
3. As there are no multipliers for the number of contacts, do activators just get the required number of contacts for official activation, or spend time on the summit to give as many chasers a point as possible?
    
4. And lastly, if you are some distance from the peak, say because the peak is on private property and you cant get any closer, but are still within 25M of the summit HASL, does that still count as an official activation?