9 easy summits in FL/NO

In the beginning of October 2026, I activated 9 summits in the FL/NO region in two days.
Most of these easy hills are drive ups, only two of them needed a short walk to the activation zone.

Here is a brief report containing the essential information on where to park and if necessary, how to get to the summit.

I had chased 4 of the 9 summits before, so these became a 'complete' for me.
As a bonus, 7 of the 9 summits were also POTA parks. Nice!

For navigating, I used Google Maps and had no problems.

Equipment was my IC-705 Go Box, and the 9.15m non-resonant wire, tuned with the ATU-100.

These were the summits. Click the link if you want to see the summit info page.

Day 1

FL/NO-140, Montagne d'Attiche - 188m, 1 point

FL/NO-121, Mont Cesar, Catenoy - 162m, 1 point 

FL/NO-025, Mont Pagnotte - 222m, 1 point 

FL/NO-105, Carrefour du Chêne Quentin - 210m, 1 point 

Day 2

FL/NO-102, Buttes de Rosne - 217m, 1 point

FL/NO-095, Bois de la Mare aux Loups - 236m, 1 point 

FL/NO-136, Bois de Courcelles, Savignies - 239m, 1 point 

FL/NO-137, Les Dutots - 231m, 1 point

FL/NO-131, Le Moulin de Ronchois - 247m, 1 point

Day 1

I left my home in Ostend at 05:25 local time, and somewhere halfway, I had my breakfast in the car ...it was only 9°C outside ...

I arrived at the first summit at 09:05.

FL/NO-140, Montagne d'Attiche - 188m, 1 point
+ POTA FR-11207

Parking spot : 49.53344, 2.88895, at the edge of a field, and near an abandoned brick building.
No walking needed, the parking spot is well in the activation zone.

I got a visit from a local farmer who was curious at what I was doing. We had a friendly chat and he let me continue with my activation. 

It was a "cool" activation, outside temperature being only 11°C. I made 17 QSO's with 1 S2S and 2 P2P.

FL/NO-121, Mont Cesar, Catenoy - 162m, 1 point 

+ POTA FR-11219

Parking spot : 49.359996, 2.498287, where you can drive into the wood and find a small parking space for a couple of cars. See picture below.

I walked some 50m away from the road to avoid the noise from passing traffic, but in essence this is a drive up summit again.

I had a good run of 33 QSO's here, including 6 S2S and 2P2P.

FL/NO-025, Mont Pagnotte - 222m, 1 point 

+ POTA FR-3060

Parking spot is 49.278122, 2.634911, which is the official parking for Mont Pagnotte. 

If you really want to be at the actual summit, you can continue driving with care (I did!), but beware of a few big potholes in the road. Not much to see at the summit, except for this view of the radio tower.

Since the official parking is in the AZ, I returned to that parking, had my lunch there, and then set up for my activation. Temperature had risen to a comfortable 18°C.

Lunchtime at Mont Pagnotte ...

Result of the activation : 24 QSO's with 4 S2S and 1 P2P.

FL/NO-105, Carrefour du Chêne Quentin - 210m, 1 point 

+ POTA FR-15676

Another easy drive up summit, parking spot : 49.11954,2.33345, with space for several cars. Check it out in Google Streetview.

I walked a little into the wood, and set up along the forest track.

This was the best activation of the trip, with 44 QSO's! This included 4 S2S and 5 P2P.

After this one, it was time to find my AirBnb near Chambly, halfway between my last summit of the day, and the first one of the next day.

Day 2

FL/NO-102, Buttes de Rosne - 217m, 1 point

+ POTA FR-16470

There is a parking space right across the street, at the start of the track to the summit, pos 49.189415, 2.031825

This parking spot is not in the AZ, so here we need to walk a little. It took me only 5 minutes to reach a spot in the activation zone. 

It was quite damp and cool that morning, only 11°C again.

But it was a peaceful and quiet activation, nobody came to disturb me 😀

I kept the activation rather short, with only 10 QSO's, no S2S and  1 P2P.

 

FL/NO-095, Bois de la Mare aux Loups - 236m, 1 point 

Parking spot 49.358953, 1.958202, where you can drive a little into the track, away from the noisy road.

I could set up in the sunshine, but temperature was still only 15°C.

Not sure what happened, but I had some trouble to attract the chasers, ending the activation with only 5 QSO's. Still got  a nice S2S with Manuel HB9DQM/P.

FL/NO-136, Bois de Courcelles, Savignies - 239m, 1 point

+ POTA FR-3054

Parking space 49.472404, 1.938929, at the start of the track to the summit.

WARNING : there is not much space to park a car, make sure you don't block the traffic from the forest track !

Traffic you say ? YES, during my activation at the summit, a big 4WD with a trailer passed at my operating spot. I had to move my chair and table to let them pass, they came to collect some wood.

A bit later I saw a small Fiat 500 passing by, which would need to pass my car ...

Anyway, I didn't dare to drive up to the summit, the track is in a bad shape. So I walked some 10 minutes to reach a nice spot near the summit.

Again not the best conditions it seemed, I made only 10 QSO's, including 1 S2S and 2 P2P.

I was glad to work Armin, DL6GCA, who needed this summit for a complete.  

FL/NO-137, Les Dutots - 231m, 1 point

+ POTA FR-4404

Very easy drive up : parking position 49.495829, 1.580739, where you can drive a little into the forest road and park (just before a barrier blocks the track).

First I had my lunch, sitting in the sunshine, with a nice 18°C.

For my activation, I moved to a spot in the shade.

Conditions had clearly improved, I had 27 QSO's here, with 2 S2S.

Then it was time to drive to my last summit, an even easier one ...

 

FL/NO-131, Le Moulin de Ronchois - 247m, 1 point

Parking spot 49.703704, 1.625484, next to the water tower.

Since I still had some 3.5 hours driving home, I kept it short, with 11 QSO's in 25 minutes, with 1 S2S.

The drive home was long and boring, I arrived back home at 19:25 local time.

Thanks for reading, see you for another story soon !

73 de Luc, ON7DQ

IC-7300 Paddle <> Key Switch for IC-7300 Mk2

Since I recently bought the new IC-7300 Mark 2, I wanted to sell my old IC-7300, and luckily I found a buyer ;-).

I wanted to keep my "Nintendo" controller, but surprise ... it didn't work with the new rig !

See the original article about that Nintendo controller (with two buttons) here.
Or see the extended version (with 8 buttons) here.

Two problems are the cause it didn't work: the Mk2 has a new hex address, $B6 instead of the old $94. And the CI-V command table has been revised, and many commands have changed codes as well.

To make it easy, and because some PC programs don't support the Mk2 yet, I changed the transceiver address back to the old $94.  One problem solved !

Then I reprogrammed my Nintendo controller with the new commands for the Mk2. The revised CI-V Reference Guide for the Mk2 can be found on the Icom Japan website, download it here

The new Arduino sketch for the Mk2 is available on my github here.

Look for the file called MiniPro_IC7300Mk2_PaddleKeyKSwitch_2026.ino

Basically, the only changes are for the Key type (01 64 became 02 24), and the USB AF <> IF setting (00 59 became 00 69).

Of course you can make this project with any Arduino (UNO, Nano, etc), or use less buttons if you don't need all the functions. And if you find some more useful commands in the reference guide, feel free to adapt the code to your preference. If you make all 8 buttons short & long press, you can have up to 16 different commands.

$ $ $

To be sold with the old rig, I built another controller in a new box, also containing 8 pushbuttons, which have the same function as in the previous build.  The circuit is still based on the original, only adding more buttons to pins 2-3-4-5 and 10-11.

I started by putting 8 pushbuttons on a piece of perfboard, and prepared an  Arduino Pro Mini with the necessary wires. I did solder a 4-pin programming input, and added a wire to the RESET pin, since this won't be accessible once the box is closed. A reset button was then added on the back of the perfboard (not on the picture below).

I attached the Arduino Pro Mini  to the perfboard with double sided adhesive tape, and connected all wires, the diode and 10k resistor. A 5V wallwart, and half of a 3.5mm stereo cable complete the assembly.

 As an extra, I added a red LED, that blinks each time a command is sent.

Once the box was closed, I fixed some printed labels with Scotch tape.
See the final result in the top picture.

Happy tinkering !

73 de Luc ON7DQ 

ON7DQ Friedrichshafen 2026 - Day 11

From Trier to Ostend (B), 400 km

No more SOTA summits today, just a stop near Brussels at noon, to have my lunch and take some rest, splitting the 400 km ride in two.

I left my Bnb at 08:35, to avoid the traffic, but it didn't help much. I had a lot of traffic jams around Luxemburg and Brussels. I arrived at my POTA stop at 12:15, temperature 22°C.

POTA BE-0513 Verdronken kinderenvallei Nature Reserve

Just 11 QSO's here, enough to have a valid POTA activation.

I started driving again at 14:00, and had no more problems, arriving home at 15:35.

Well, that's the end of this report. Thanks for reading, and I hope to be back with another story soon

73,

Luc ON7DQ

If you want to start all over ... go back to overview HERE

ON7DQ Friedrichshafen 2026 - Day 10

From Karlsruhe to Trier, 258 km

There were a lot of summits in the DM/RP area to choose from. I have activated only 16 of the 60 summits so far. I chose my first summit because it would be a complete (= chased and activated).

DM/RP-433, Rehberg - 564m, 4 points

I arrived at the parking at 09:30 local time, position 49.187562, 7.964390

Temperature was 23°C.
I followed the track by DD6FM from SotaMaps, with a small diversion.

I tried to follow the mountainbike tracks as a shortcut, but I don't think that's a good idea. Parts of that track are very steep, and there are some boulders where you have to climb over.

And what if a mountainbiker would come down at full speed ?
So when I came back down, I just followed the main paths, much easier and safer!

This was the ascending track     ...                         and this was the descent.
Can you spot the difference?

The walk was not easy, but I passed some beautiful places, like these interesting rock formations.

At the summit is a lookout tower, and beside it was a picnic bench, which was in the shade. Ideal to set up my outdoor shack.

40 minutes later, I  had logged 22 QSO's, with 3 S2S, on 40m and 20m CW and SSB.

After my activation, I climbed the tower, and had a nice view over the area.

For my second summit, I chose an easy drive-up.

DM/RP-171, Röster Kopf - 708m, 6 points

Parking is here 49.674106, 6.833372, which is in the activation zone.

There is an old worn-out picnic bench near the road, but it is useful as an operating spot. I had to take my umbrella again, the sun was burning with temperatures nearing the 30°C again.

I kept the activation short because I still had some driving to do. I made only 14 CW QSO's, no S2S.

My last AirBnb for this trip was in the small village of Föhren near Trier.  

Culinary tip : I can recommend this Italian restaurant in the nearby village of Quint.

 

Continue reading ... go to DAY 11

or

Go back to overview HERE

ON7DQ Friedrichshafen 2026 - Day 9

From Friedrichshafen to Karlsruhe, 258 km

Due to the broken GPS module, APRS has stopped working in my car, but this was the route as plotted by Google Maps.

I left my Bnb in Friedrichshafen at 08:45, and during the 100 km ride, I had some rain. 

But when I arrived at the first summit at, the rain had stopped. Lucky me!

DM/BW-058, Burg - 975m, 10 points

The road to the summit is again an "Anlieger Frei" road, so you can easily drive up to the gates of the deserted military installation. Parking position : 48.27195,9.02257

As it felt COLD at only 18°C, and the long grass on the path through the forest was all wet, I didn't want to walk to the viewing point, and just set up a few metres from the car.

I had 33 QSO's with 4 S2S, one of those was on 2m FM with Tom HB9EVF/P at a distance of 129 km, using only 5W from my FT1D and a Chinse RH-770 clone. Nice!

DM/BW-846, Burg Hohenzollern - 850m, 10 points

Another easy one. It seems the parking fee for Parking P1, closest to the castle, is comprised in the entrance ticket. Since I didn't want to visit the castle, I just drove to P1 and paid nothing ... hi.

Nobody bothered me. P1 Position : 48.325664, 8.963969

I first had my lunch near the car, temperature was a nice 24°C. 

 

I wanted to take the footpath to the castle entrance, and the first part looked nice.

But the second part was (still) closed for construction works, so I had to follow the main road, and watch out for the shuttle busses.

I guess it doesn't takes much longer to reach the castle anyway.

I had a quick look at the entrance gate, and then looked for a place to set up.

I thought the end of the guardrail near the bus stop looked just big enough to use it as a table for my rig. The 'no parking' sign was ideal to attach the 9:1 UNUN. A bit further, my 6m pole was holding the wire. I posted myself behind the guardrail, so I wouldn't bother any walkers or shuttle busses.

The activation went well, but after a while, a man in  a white shirt with a Burg Hohenzollern logo came to me, telling me I was on private property and a lot of other things I didn't understand.

I politely explained (in German of course) what I was doing, trying to have a few contacts with other amateurs, but also that I was off road, bothering no one, and that the forest around the castle is public walking area.

He just replied "Sie haben recht" (you are right) ... and he walked away. I continued my activation for another 10 minutes without 'local QRM' and then packed my stuff and went back to the car.

My log showed 22 QSO's with 5 S2S, not bad. All QSO's were on 20m CW, with two exceptions : I worked Michael, DB7MM/P on 40m SSB, and surprise : Rob, DL/K6KM/P was worked on 10m CW. To be fair, Rob was only 22 km away on DM/BW-041, so that must have been a groundwave contact.

After this it was time to start driving again, still 140 km to go ... and with heavy traffic.
I found my AirBnb near Karlsruhe, arrivng at 17:40. Temperature had risen to 29°C, but luckily, this Bnb had airconditioning ... wonderful.

Tomorrow still two SOTA summits in the DM/RP area.

Continue reading ... go to DAY 10

or

Go back to overview HERE