This is a report
on my recent SOTA tour on Mallorca (EA6/MA) from 7 – 21 May 2017.
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| EA6/ON7DQ on EA6/MA-063 Jaumell |
In summary,
I spent 15 days on Mallorca, and in 13 of those days, I activated 17 summits. I
had planned to do 20, but had to cancel four summits for various reasons : not
accessible, too much delay on a first summit, or just too hot … and the beach
being more attractive at that point, hi.
I added one summit “on the fly” which was not planned.
In
chronological order, these were the summits I activated on this tour :
(click on the name of the summmit to read the detailed report)
(click on the name of the summmit to read the detailed report)
07/May/2017 EA6/MA-060 (Santa Magdalena)
08/May/2017 EA6/MA-052 (Puig de Maria)
09/May/2017 EA6/MA-017 (Puig d'Alaró)
09/May/2017 EA6/MA-021 (Talaia de Cals Reis)
10/May/2017 EA6/MA-048 (Fumat)
10/May/2017 EA6/MA-077 (Talaia d'Albercutx)
11/May/2017 EA6/MA-066 (Puig se San Marti)
12/May/2017 EA6/MA-034 (Puig de Ferrutx)
13/May/2017 EA6/MA-076 (Puig des Recó)
13/May/2017 EA6/MA-065 (Puig de sa Cova Negra)
15/May/2017 EA6/MA-063 (Jaumell)
16/May/2017 EA6/MA-056 (Puig de Bonany)
17/May/2017 EA6/MA-053 (Puig de son Seguí)
18/May/2017 EA6/MA-080 (Puig de sa Font)
19/May/2017 EA6/MA-035 (Puig de Sant Salvador)
20/May/2017 EA6/MA-032 (Santuari de Cura)
20/May/2017 EA6/MA-042 (Puig de Caldent)
In
total, I made 528 QSO's, an average of 31 per summit. I had a peak of 59 QSO’s
on EA6/MA-056 (Puig de Bonany) on May 16.
Propagation
was not always at its best, signals were often weak, heavy QSB made it even
very hard at some times, but it was never a problem to get the minimum of 4
QSO’s.
Also
glad to have logged several ON stations, with Karel, ON4FI my top ON chaser
(what did you expect ?).
Also nice …
35 Summit-to-Summit (S2S) contacts, an average of 2 per summit. This brought me
to the number 1 place in the S2S ranking
for Belgium with 920 points. Not bad, since I will probably never make it to
number 1 as activator nor chaser … hi.
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| Stunning view of Cap Formentor lighthouse from EA6/MA-048 Fumat |
This trip
netted me “only” 42 activator points. In retrospect this is not so much, considering
the effort needed, and compared to around double the points for much less
effort on my winter tour (see the March 2017 entry on this blog). But of
course, I had a great holiday, discovering a whole other landscape and meeting
some interesting people.
Now, as a help to other activators, I rearranged my
summit list according to difficulty.
Of course , this is a subjective matter … depends
on your personal abilities and such.
The ones marked with “*FIRST”, were first
activations and/or new summits since May 2017.
If you need some info on those, feel free to send me a mail and I will help as much as I can.
If you need some info on those, feel free to send me a mail and I will help as much as I can.
Tracks for the new ones have been uploaded to the
Sota Mapping page :
Those with “*TOURIST” are also tourist attractions,
and have parking space, toilets, a cafetaria or restaurant, … but also many
visitors, so the place may get crowded, even noisy … (read on for an example
;-).
Very easy : minimal
walking involved, do these if you don’t have much time :
EA6/MA-032 (Santuari de Cura) *TOURIST
EA6/MA-035 (Puig de Sant Salvador) *TOURIST
EA6/MA-077 (Talaia d'Albercutx) *FIRST
(well, actually this is an old summit with a new number, and there is really
no need for a track) + *TOURIST
EA6/MA-065 (Puig de sa Cova Negra)
Easy, a bit of
'level' walking to the operating point is needed :
EA6/MA-060 (Santa Magdalena) *TOURIST
EA6/MA-056 (Puig de Bonany) *TOURIST
Fairly
difficult , walk around 30 mins, including some steep stuff (as
always at the end of the walk, near the summit) :
EA6/MA-052 (Puig de Maria) *TOURIST
EA6/MA-021 (Talaia de Cals Reis)
EA6/MA-048 (Fumat)
EA6/MA-053 (Puig de son Seguí) (large radio tower, but no noise from
it)
EA6/MA-076 (Puig des Recó) FIRST (cabin with guard on summit)
EA6/MA-080 (Puig de sa Font) FIRST (radio towers with solar panels, lot of RF
noise)
EA6/MA-042 (Puig de Caldent) FIRST (nothing on top,
RF quiet)
Very difficult, long walk (more
than 30 minutes), and/or quite steep
EA6/MA-063 (Jaumell) *TOURIST
EA6/MA-017 (Puig d'Alaró) *TOURIST
EA6/MA-066 (Puig se San Marti) (last part is pure
scrambling over rocks, I found it a bit dangerous, would avoid this summit next
time)
EA6/MA-034 (Puig de Ferrutx) (very long and
boring walk : 2 hours one way)
Although I have seen some (pretty) young ladies in
flip-flops along these rocky paths (e.g. at MA-063 Jaumell), I would advise for
good walking shoes, walking stick(s), and as always take enough water, sunscreen, small umbrella,
etc …
Navigating the small Mallorcan roads that lead to
the start of a track was not always easy.
One solution I found, was putting my navigation app
in BICYCLE mode. In CAR mode it would send me via a whole detour, and still not
reaching the point where I wanted to be.
I used the free Android app Maps With Me Pro on my phone,
for navigating in the car as well AS for walking, and had very few problems
with it.
For recording the tracks, I used the app OSM Tracker, and spotting was done with
Rucksack Radio Tool, or by relying
on RBNHole spotting in CW.
Links :
 |
| How neat ... a summit with an operating desk ! (on EA6/MA-035 Puig de Sant Salvador) |
My SOTA
equipment included :
Rigs :
KX3 with a 5€ PC-headset and homemade PTT box for phone,
Palm Pico paddle +
EA2BD type wooden “clothespeg” paddle for CW. I used both paddles about the
same amount.
FT1D for VHF and APRS, Slim Jim antenna with own 5m of RG-58 coax.
Linx 7" tablet with interface for digimodes.
Batteries :
Home made Li-Ion battery 4S2P, 16.8V when fully
charged. I used this one with an automatic voltage reducer so that the KX3
could always be used at 15W.
As a backup, I had a commercial 5800 mAh Li-Po
battery 3S2P (Hacker), but I never used it, because I only get 10W maximum with
it, and with maximum of 2 activations in a day, I never needed it.
Antennas :
Link dipole 40m - 6m, only used on 2
summits.
Endfed wire, length 9.15m + counterpoise 4m, and
9:1 UNUN, proved to be very handy in setting up, and allowed for instant band
change. Maybe it is a little less efficient radiator than the link dipole.
Coax : 3.5m RG-58 (in car : backup 10m RG-174,
never needed it)
Fishing pole 6m, ground spike, bungee cords, large
plastic bag + towel (to sit on and keep me or my stuff dry), and of
course logbook, pens and other small accessories …
Total weight of backpack : 7 kg, not including any
water or food.
Clothing : long trousers, shirt with long sleeves,
hat … all from the Decathlon trekking department. Made me sweat a bit more …
but gave protection from the sun and all those little beasties …
I didn’t use any tick spray or such, and luckily didn’t get any
tick bites (in Spanish : garrapatas !).
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| Una cerveza después la activación ... hace tan bien ! A tu salud ! (at Bar Willies after EA6/MA-063 Jaumell) |
Of course I have to thank a few people : Ricardo EA6AIF (now EA6LU), the EA6 Area Manager, Phil G4OBK, Heinz OE5FSM and Juerg HB9BIN for their valuable information and advice.
See you on my next trip !
See you on my next trip !
73 … Charito Charito !
Luc EA6/ON7DQ
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