Well I am finally back into some regular SOTA activating most weekends.

The first activation was Brown Hill Range VK5/SE-004 and I had the pleasure of some company with Halima this time. She had to keep the hounds under control as Rocky found a rabbit under the stone wall and that kept him entertained for most of our visit. The old rabbit just stayed put in his possy out of harms way and there was no need to restrain an attack from Rocky who is fond of chasing Rabbits, but its mostly exercise he rarely catches them.

Halima has her hiking shoes on and a substantial lead on the dogs, the white and black spotty dog is Jack and Rocky is the other Tenterfield Terrorist looking content to be out and about.

Band conditions were really quite good and because it was ANZAC day I used the AX prefix as did many others when we remembered to say it instead of the call sign you are used to using.

Several Summit 2 Summit QSO’s were achieved on this occasion as many other activators were out taking part in ANZAC Day Holiday. Probably the best contact was VK6NU on 40m CW, I usually need to work him on 20m so it tells how conditions were that day. S2S with Brian VK3MCD on VK3/VE-019 Hugh VK5NHG on VK5/SE-010 Peter VK3PF on VK3/VT-046.

Not mentioned in my Title for this blog is another summit I went to a week later which was South Hummocks  which was my first attempt at a movie with my new GoPro camera . Boys and Toys you know the drill.

South Hummocks VK5/SE-017

This summit has had some work done with the removal on the shot up trig point and the usual blue poles have replaced it so no a nice area to put up the Squiddy. With the excitement I forgot to take my trusty old camera so I have no photos of the activation. Once again I had a great mix of QSO’s with many vk’s on 7 mhz ssb and another great S2S on 14 mhz ssb with ZL3CC on his first activation and his first S2S with VK . While I had the link dipole on 14 MHZ I worked some more vk zl then some eu and ja staions on cw before returning to 7 mhz cw to find even more chasers, then finally using the same antenna on 21 mhz I worked N7 Ja and vk6nu on cw just to fill up my note book nicely. One thing I also noticed on this summit the, small ants were not active this time they chased my around to a couple spots last time I was there biting and getting in my clothes.

Now back on track.

Hallett Hill VK5/SE-003

No sooner set up I found the couple of parks activators had gone clear so I was able to use 7.090 they were chatting when I was driving up the summit track. This track is a very nice drive and you travel several kilometres along the top of the range.

Most of the turbines were working as the wind was quite steady but not too strong.

I was able to activate without my wind jacket and woolly hat so WX was really nice. A really good pile ups on 7 mhz ssb and cw with a S2S with Tony VK3CAT on VK3/VT-040 on cw and I had the pleasure of a call from some new activators this time. VK5PCM running 2 watts on ssb, his antenna was in the roof of his house but I was able to hear him quite clearly with no noise at my end. VK5BUG came up and we had a QSO using his bug key and it just sounds so good on cw to listen to. I made the joke with him I thought is was a bird singing in the bush when I first heard it.

This poor old land scape is a bit eaten out and dry and could do with some rain .

I had a good time working 40m ssb and cw with vk’s then on 20m I got some more vk’s and dx to Europe with a S2S with 2E0YYY on 20m ssb. Tony VK3CAT was also trying to bust the EU pile up for a S2S so I hope he was successful.

Thanks for reading

CZ ee