EA7 SOTA Tour - Day 4

This day we moved from Malaga to Lanjarón, and visited the white village of Frigiliana, so only one SOTA activation was possible.

22/May/2019 EA7/MA-027 (Reina)

Parking is at the Fuenta de la Reina here: 36.813118, -4.372143 , or you can drive the small road to the left (with the long name "Camino de las Contadoras y de Jotrón"), up to the radio tower here: 36.816604, -4.374553, where you can also park.

The gate to the paved road that leads to the VOR installation on the summit has some fierce "forbidden" signs ... if they scare you off, take this road : park at the radio tower, and take the rather steep slope going East, at the end you will be able to continue along the paved road, without meeting any "forbidden signs" (that's what we did ;-). It's only a 20 minute walk in total.
See picture below.

During the activation, several cars came up to work at the station (2 technicians, and later 2 people repairing the fence). Nobody bothered to ask what I was doing.
So I went over to have a little talk with them and they were very friendly.
Speaking some Spanish is of course always handy !

On the summit is a nice tree for some shade, and plenty of space to put up your antenna.
After my main battery failed on the first activation, I had used my backup "cassette box" battery.
While I also had this backup battery with me, I wanted to try my "backup backup" battery, say "plan C". It is also a plan to avoid trouble during airport security checks.
I made a description of it on the SOTA reflector, see more details here.

Four cells from a powerbank are placed in series, and give 16.8V when fully charged. The automatic voltage reducer gives just under 15V, perfect for the KX3 to give the full power of 15W(or 12W on the high bands) all the time.

The activation went well, and netted 30 QSO's , including 5 S2S.
Since I stayed on the summit for over one hour, this activation was also valid for DVGE, see report here.

And with this lovely view from the summit we go on to the next one ...




For the next activation, continue on  Day 7

or

Go back to the overview