ON7DQ Friedrichshafen 2018 - Day 1

ON/ON-017 (Bois Haut)

I left home in Ostend at 05:40 local time, still I got into several traffic jams. So with some delay , I arrived at my first summit at 10:40 local time.

EDIT : This summit is no longer valid for SOTA!

The parking spot is next to a bench which is in the activation zone, at position 49.545825, 5.753395.

It was raining all the time, so I had to make it a short activation

I quickly set up my 6m fishing pole away from the bench, and hanging the 9.15m random endfed as a sloper , connecting to the 9:1 UNUN, which I tied to the bench.

Operator and rig were kept as dry as possible with a large umbrella, and a plastic container.

I had the container on its side, thereby covering the KX3, CW paddle and logbook.

A nice comfy mini-shack !

After only 7 CW QSO's, all on 40m, I had to quit, the rain was getting really heavy, so I packed up, and went to a shopping center in Luxemberg for lunch and fuel ... and kept myself warm and dry there for a while. After that, I drove South to France , and went to this summit.

FL/VO-057 (Côte de Drince)

I arrived at 15:40 local time, found a forest road in very bad shape, and flooded with water ... still I took the risk and drove to this parking position : 49.220599, 6.08632, next to an old forest house.

The start of this forest road can be found here : 49.216107, 6.080344, along the road D112C (Rue de Verdun).

From there I followed a track through the forest, up North, until I was in the activation zone. This track was also flooded in places, so I had to find a deviation through the trees ...
Because of all the bad weather, I didn't record a track, sorry.

And when I finally had found a suitable (fairly dry) spot to setup my TWO umbrellas ... the rain stopped and the sky cleared up a little.

I had double the number of QSO's here, so 14 QSO's in the log, a mix of CW and SSB , on 40-30-20m.

So far for a wet start of what would otherwise be a very nice and sunny trip !

Continue reading ... go to DAY 2

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