ON7DQ Trip to Friedrichshafen 2026

This is the report of my SOTA/POTA trip  to Friedrichshafen, the SOTA Dinner, the HAM RADIO fair and more ... 

If you stumbled on my blog by accident, and don't know what SOTA means, read this first : 
What is SOTA?

Summary

This was my ninth visit to Friedrichshafen, and once more it was again a "solo" trip.

My XYL had already used all of her vacation days for our trip to Tenerife (see this report).

This time, I was on the road for 11 days, I drove 2066 km, using 156€ of fuel, thanks to my hybrid car (Toyota Corolla TS, see above).

I stayed in 6 different AirBnb's, which is a cost-effective way of travel. At the same time, you can have a chat with some interesting people, much better than the anonymity you get in a hotel. Often you get a kitchen to use, a nice garden, some lovely pets, ...

The weather was very hot all the way, so I had to cancel a few summit, and replaced some summits where I had to walk by easier drive-up summits.

I activated 17 SOTA summits, ** POTA parks, and 1 bunker ofr BOTA (Bunkers On The Air).

Most of those were combined activations, only 1 parks on the way home was a seperate activation.

Some statistics for SOTA

This trip  added *** activator points.

Also adding ** chaser points, ** summit-to-summit points, ** new completes, ** new activator uniques and ** new chaser uniques. 

SOTA is not a conpetition, but it's a fun game between Peter, ON4UP, and myself, to be the number one in the S2S ranking for Belgium. So I'm number one for the moment ... that is until Peter gets on the road again, at the time of writing , he's only 325 points behind, hi.

Equipment used

IC-705 in Go-Box + ATU-100 Autotuner

For this trip I took again the Icom IC-705 in it's Go-Box.
The SatRover setup for QO-100 didn't see much use last year, so I left it at home this time.

Antenna's :  9.15m random wire, with 9:1 UNUN and 4m counterpoise.
Coax 5m RG-58.
ATU-100 autotuner (built from a kit).
Sony headphones, K6ARK mini microphone.
Palm Mini paddle (green edition).
6m fishing pole from Decathlon (missing the thinnest element, so really only 5.5m).
Cellphone with data plan and Ham2k Polo for logging/spotting.

Here is the list of activated summits followed by some statistics ... click on the Day x link to go directly to the report of the respective summits.

Day 1

• DM/RP-187, Wildenburger Kopf - 670m, 6 points (POTA DE-0022/0026/1015)
• DM/RP-158, Erbeskopf - 816m, 8 points  (POTA DE-0022/0026/1015/0623/0858)

Day 2

• FL/VO-197, Hochkopf - 429m, 2 points
• FL/VO-191, Helfenstein - 363m, 2 points 

• FL/VO-048, Grand Wintersberg - 581m, 4 points

Day 3

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• FL/VO-170, Le Rainkopf - 1305m, 10 points  (POTA FR-3409 and 5 others)
• FL/VO-080, Rothenbachkopf - 1316m, 10 points (POTA FR-3409 and 5 others)
• FL/VO-082, Petit Ballon - 1272m, 10 points (POTA FR-3409)

Day 4

• DM/BW-008, Schauinsland - 1284m, 10 points  (POTA DE-0004)
• DM/BW-105, Schönberg - 645m, 6 points

Day 5

• DM/BW-233, Buchberg - 880m, 10 points (POTA DE-0004)
• DM/BW-235, Hoher Randen - 930m, 10 points (POTA DE-0004)
• DM/BW-359, Stöckenloch - 698m, 6 points

Day 6

• POTA DA-0156, Riedlepark
• DM/BW-854, Höchsten - 838m, 8 Points
• The SOTA Dinner

Day 7

• The Ham Radio fair
• The SOTA Meeting
• The SOTA booth 

Day 8

• DM/BW-348, Gehrenberg - 754m, 8 Points
• with Second Mountain Goat !

Day 9 

• DM/BW-064, Heersberg - 964m, 10 points
• DM/BW-147, Gespaltener Fels - 1000m, 10 points (POTA DE-0005 & DE-0929)
• DM/BW-054, Hohloh - 984m, 10 points (POTA DE-0009)

Day 10

• DM/RP-411, Hohe Derst - 561m, 4 points, chased (POTA DE-0016)
• FL/VO-166, Stromberg - 314m, 1 point (POTA LU-0015 & FR-3232)

Day 11

• POTA BE-0508 Laarbeekbos ... and going home !

Copyright notice :

Driving maps are from https://aprs.fi/

QSO maps are from https://www.sotadata.org.uk/nl/map/

Summit track maps are from https://www.openstreetmap.org/ 

Continue reading this story ... go to DAY 1