ON7DQ Friedrichshafen 2025 - Day 11

From Yutz (FR) to Ostend (B), 374 km

To split the ride in two and have some rest, I chose a POTA Park near Brussels

POTA BE-0508 Laarbeekbos

I parked here , pos 50.884172, 4.302819
First I had my lunch, and to quickly set up, I put up my 5.6m Chinese vertical on the fence, the top of the antenna resting between the leaves of the trees. The 4m counterpoise was weaved along the fence.

After 10 QSO's and 1 P2P, it was time to get on the road again ... 

I arrived home at 16:00 local time, and that was the end of a wonderful 11-day SOTA/POTA trip.

I hope you enjoyed the report, and found the information useful.
See you on another trip soon!

73 de Luc, ON7DQ

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ON7DQ Friedrichshafen 2025 - Day 10

 From Karlsruhe to Yutz (Thionville), 225 km

DM/RP-411, Hohe Derst - 561m, 4 points

I got some good info from Ingo, DH5ST, about how to get to a nice operating spot for this summit.

Parking is here 49.087561, 7.925953, it is shown on the maps as Wanderparkplatz "Drei Eichen", and can be reached via a narrow forest road, drive carefully and hope that nobody comes from the other direction, hi.

The forest road starts here 49.097757, 7.941459, along the L492 in Böllenborn.

From the parking, follow the paved road upward, but after a big bend in the road it gets a bit tricky : you come at  a point where you can choose from 7 different tracks ! See map below.

The paved road (white line) will take you to the real sumit, near a transmitting tower. But Ingo advised me to take the narrow track just left of this road, it is steep and overgrown in some places, but it takes you via the "Ritterstein" , and finally to a nice  spot in the activation zone, where you will see two benches.

Ritterstein

The choice was not difficult, one bench was in plain sunshine, the other was partly in the shade.

From there, you also have a nice view of the area.

I stayed QRV for 45 minutes, and made 31 QSO's, with 5 S2S.

On the way to the next summit, I stopped for some shopping at the Zweibrücken Fashion Outlet. Parking position is 49.232226, 7.402977 if you're interested.

FL/VO-166, Stromberg - 314m, 1 point

This is an easy drive-up summit. Set your GPS to this position first:  49.454426, 6.347420, and take the Rue Saint Vincent, going in the North-Eastern direction. It becomes a narrow forest road, but continue on until you reach the summit at pos 49.449709, 6.355749.

I arrived there at 15:55 local time, and it was hot hot hot ... 35°C!
Lucky for me, there is a solar installation on the summit, where I could park in the shade, and setup my station a bit further under the shelter. The large grass field is ideal to put up big antennas if you wish.

From the summit you have a wonderful view over the area and the Moselle river. You will also see the nuclear plant of Cattenom to the South-West.

In half an hour, I had 10 QSO's in the log, no S2S but 2 P2P, since this summit is also valid for 2 POTA references. Working EA8ADS was one of the few DX contacts on this trip.

I really wanted to stay the night somewhere in Luxemburg, but couldn't find anything suitable. So I had to make a small detout to Yutz near Thionville, in France.

Tomorrow I'm going home, no more summits but just one POTA activation halfway the road.

Continue reading ... go to DAY 11

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ON7DQ Friedrichshafen 2025 - Day 9

Trip from Friedrichshafen to Karlsruhe, 297 km

Another hot day was promised!

After I loaded all my stuff from the apartment into my car, I was already sweating like hell, despite it was "only" 24 °C. I left at 09:10 for my first summit.

DM/BW-064, Heersberg - 964m, 10 points

After a 110 km ride through heavy traffic, I arrived at the parking spot at 10:55.
The parking spot is at pos 48.237385, 8.932003, in the village of Burgfelden.

Lots of space, and some trees to let you park in the shade, the temperature was already 27°C.

The walk to a spot in the AZ takes only 15 minutes. I used the same location as suggested by Phil, G4OBK. Only difference ... I couldn't use the nice table to operate, it was simply too hot.

So I found some shade at the small building nearby.

17 QSO's in the log with 5 S2S.

Mystery object

Near the benches and table, I found this strange object. Anyone know what it is ?
Drone launcher, UFO landing platform, SOTA antenna mount ... ?

After the activation, I had a quick picnic near my car, then it was time to start driving to ...

DM/BW-147, Gespaltener Fels - 1000m, 10 points 

This summit is just 20 km to the West from Heersberg.
Being there on a Monday, I could drive up to the parking spot at pos 48.218898, 8.844863, marked on the maps as "Grillplatz".
I'm sure the good shepard would watch over my car ... so I started walking.

The first part is in the woods, but the last part goes over an open grass field, so take sun protection and enough water.
After 30 minutes I reached the summit, and found an old bench to use as an operating spot.

Again , I made 17 QSO's here, with 3 S2S.this time.

After this, it was a 100 km ride to the next one, and then another 66 to my AirBnb in Hagenbach near Karlsruhe. So I better got going ...

DM/BW-054, Hohloh - 984m, 10 points

This is an easy, almost drive up summit.
Best parking is Parking C , at pos 48.707374, 8.427898, I arrived there at 16:40.
Again, being late on a Monday afternoon, the parking was almost deserted, it may be different in a weekend. From there it's only a straight 800m walk with 45m ascent.

At the summit is a hut, which I used to set up my station, the antenna was outside the hut of course.

Several people came by to climb the tower, but nobody paid attention to my operation. 

Here my cosy indoor shack ...

I had to hurry a little, so made it a short activation. In just 15 minutes I had 13 QSO' s in the log, and just 1 S2S, still a good result.

 I left the parking at 17:30 local time, got me some food in a supermarket, and arrived at my AirBnb at  19:00. Temperature had risen to 35°C ... good that I still had that fan 😄

Continue reading on DAY 10

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ON7DQ Friedrichshafen 2025 - Day 8

The one with the flat tyre and  ... a second Mountain Goat !

It was Sunday morning, and I had planned a day trip to Bavaria, to activate two summits that I needed for complete : DL/AL-273, Laubenberg (1 point) and DL/AL-148, Riedholzer Kugel (2 points).
With 3 points, these two summits would have brought my activator score at 1999 points, just one point short of another Mountain Goat.

But my car decided otherwise. 
The evening before I got this warning about a tyre with low pressure, so I first went to check my car.
When I looked around the tyre, I found a screw, which must have caused the drop in pressure, but it was not completely flat.

Since my car no longer has a spare tyre, I phoned the Toyota Assistance number in Belgium, and must admit they provide an excellent service. Around 10:30, a man from German ADAC came by to repair the tyre ... for free ... and on a Sunday morning, GREAT!

OK, I could drive again, but by then, it was too late to start my planned trip, and I decided to go to the nearest summit, trying to keep cool ... it was already 30°C in the shade.

DM/BW-348, Gehrenberg - 754m, 8 Points

I drove to my regular parking spot near the summit at position  47.742628, 9.423206.
I verified again : there is no forbidding sign if you follow the Hinterharresheim farm road, which starts at pos 47.747471, 9.403920 along the Gehrenbergstrasse. The small road becomes a gravel road, called Turmweg.

NOTE : I heard a few activators call CQ SOTA on 2m, telling they were on a lookout tower ...

There is no lookout tower on the summit of Gehrenberg, the tower "Gehrenbergturm" is not in the activation zone. Also the place called Gehrenberg on the maps, at pos 47.7371,9.39977 is NOT the summit. All very confusing, I know.

I found a spot to setup a bit away from the real summit, where often walkers and mountainbikers come by, it can get busy at the top !

Even being hidden somewhat, I got several visitors, hams and non-hams alike, who were interested in my setup. One of those was a mountainbiker AND a HAM, it was Yannick DO9YAN. He was recently licensed, and came to activate the summit on 2m, using an FT70 and a 4-element Anjo logperiodic antenna (the same antenna that I sometimes use).

I made 30 QSO's with an incredible 15 Summit-toSummit contacts, WOW !
That made my day , but wait ...

I hadn't been paying attention to my score, so with the 8 points of this summit, I made it to second Mountain Goat a bit unexpectedly.
The honour should go to Harald, DG1YBN, who was my fourth contact. He called me from his mobile on 2m FM.

Not knowing at the time that I was already there, I didn't make any special pictures, also no champagne ... hi.

After being on the summit for 3 hours, I decided to go to my apartment and take some rest.
It was 32°C when I arrived there. Also, I had some preparation to do for the next day : a trip from Friedrichshafen to Karlsruhe, with more summits of course!

Continue reading on DAY 9

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ON7DQ Friedrichshafen 2025 - Day 7

I had taken my folding bike, so no car driving today ... only visiting ...

The Ham Radio fair

There is not so much to write about the fair, so I'll leave you with a few pictures.

CW keys for everyone

This was a heartwarming piece of equipment for me, I have been teaching a transmission line course for over 30 years, which includes teaching about the Smith Diagram.
Of course, you can buy a 30$ nanoVNA now, which will show the Smith Diagram as well.

In the afternoon was the SOTA meeting

Lucky that there was also the SOTA booth, where it was all about SOTA

The raflle, where some nice prizes could be won. Joe, OE5JFE is holding his hand above the 4 ON7DQ Clothespeg Paddles that I made for this edition of the raffle.

Nice to see a happy Uli, DC1UH, winning a QMX transceiver from QRP Labs

After a day at the fair, I quickly went across the street to see a Zeppelin take off, always a nice experience. Click the picture to see a short video of the Zeppelin.

And of course some good food and a beer made the day complete !

And I lied at the beginning of this post ... I did use the car to drive to a restaurant, some 10 km outside of Friedrichshafen. When returning, I got an alarming message on my display, that one of my tyres had a too low pressure. Oh boy !

But it was already getting dark, so I decided to look into that the next morning ...

Continue reading on DAY 8

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ON7DQ Friedrichshafen 2025 - Day 6

After all the driving in the past few days, I could use a quiet day ...
I only bought a ticket for the HamRadio for the Saturday, so I had to find another activity.

POTA DA-0156 Riedlepark Park 

In the morning, I went shopping in the Bodensee Center , where you can park for free.
I parked here 47.663869, 9.482194 , in the South-West corner of the parking lot.
Why there ? From there it is only a 400m walk to an entrance of the Riedlepark, near a playground (follow the Am riedlewald, then the Ginsterweg).

Upon entering the park, I went to my right, until I found a nice bench (pos 47.662418, 9.477810) to use as my outdoor shack.

In about 1 hour , I made 12 QSO's with 3 P2P. This is the map as made by the app Ham2K PoLo

The main activity for the day was the SOTA dinner, but that was only at 18:00 local time.
So in the afternoon, I had some time to do another SOTA activation.

DM/BW-854, Höchsten - 838m, 8 Points

This was my 6th visit to this sumit, so it almost feels like home , hi.
First I set up my HF station on the grass field near the bandstand.

After making 17 QSO's on HF, with 4 S2S. I went back to the car and set up my QO-100 dish with the SatRover transverter.

This resulted in 4 more QSO's over the satellite.
Since this is a very busy summit in the days of the HamRadio, I had several visitors stop by to say hello.

Here the short man 😉next to Thomas DJ2CG, who was interested to see the QO-100 setup.

And then it was time to pack up everything and go to ...

The SOTA Dinner !

Like the last few years , the dinner was at the Gasthof Adler in Hefigkofen (Oberteuringen).

I found a spot at the table next to Marcel DM3FAM, Armin DL6GCA and Phil G4OBK (who helped me a lot when I started SOTA back in 2014). Later we were joined by Ludwig DH8WN and Uli DC1UH.

I will not try to name all the other SOTA friends I met at the dinner, there were about 60 attendants !

Here just a few more pictures to give you an idea of the pleasant atmosphere. If you want to experience it for yourself, be there next time !

As always, the food was good, the beer was better, and the company was the best !

Continue reading on DAY 7

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