Hello everyone I have been a bit slack lately since the FYBO contest I have only managed to get 3 summits done for July as the weather has been really wet and cold so access to some of the properties has been impossible.

This is My FYBO set up where I sat for 5 hours making contacts. Set up in the scrub block near home and the path is an old Mountain Bike track we made a few years ago for training and having a bit of fun. Sitting under this shelter for 5 hours is a similar pain as riding my bike around here, just another form of torture.

On with SOTA , my first activation for July was Hill NE-041 up from Mambray Creek on the western side of Mount Remarkable National Park. This is my hardest hike for the season as it goes from 140 m asl in the car park to 810 m asl at the top in about 5 km.

This is guna hurt !!

Setting out from the park it will take me 3 hours to get there .

View of the Summit a way to go yet from Black Hill lookout which is now up to 480m asl after about 1 hour of the hike, I am in need of a water stop and rest.

Buggered would be a way to describe how I feel here after 3 hours I finally made it to the top with a bush bash off the walking trail to get the last bit.

It’s a bit awkward to set up the squidy on this hill this is the only clear area, so this was the best i could do.

Had good contacts on HF with a S2S to VK2AOH on 40m cw and worked most of the band of faithful chasers on 40m ssb and cw with JS1IFK on 15m cw who has chased me a few times now. I took the half wave 2m vertical as well so I was able to get  2m simplex contacts to VK5WG and VK5IS who were hard to hear on 40m ssb.

Just for interest I took my heart rate monitor I use for cycling and I reached 140 bpm at one time during the walk considering my Maximum is around 156 for my age.  Of the 3 hours time to make the top I spent 40 minutes stopped to rest or drink but it is really hard to gauge as the cycling gps has to be moving faster than 3 kph to record the trip. Just a gauge really all I know is it hurt, it’s a hard won 6 points.

The next SOTA weekend was Mount Cone on the Saturday and The Bluff on the Sunday.

Mount Cone is a windy cold exposed summit north of Burra . An easy summit for me to get to in the Colorado with the track up there for other services.

Not much to slow the wind down up here looking north to Mt Bryan and only a short walk up to the smaller hut from the GRN compound. I had to set up behind the hut at the top to keep out of the wind and try to stay warm.

I had very good conditions on 40m both ssb and cw and bagging 2 S2S as well to vk3cat and vk3byd this time.

I also made some good contacts to vk2 and vk6 on 21 mhz cw and 14mhz ssb. I worked every mainland state except vk8.

Thanks to all the chasers.

Sunday I was off to Laura to meet up with Dave vk5dmc who had a trip to RMN and ATV broadcast sites so I hitched a ride to the cross road near Go Cart Track and walked south along the Walking Trail to the summit of the Bluff.

After the big bushfire up there a couple years ago it is not possible to get on top of the ridge any more because the under story is now regrown so much. I used a burnt out post on the side of the road to hold my squidy this time and crouched in the bush as best i could.

This activation went well with qso’s on 40m ssb and cw once again, vk’s on 15m cw and JS1IFK  on cw, more vk’s on 20m cw to vk6 and vk3 . S2S with vk1ma and vk2oah .

This was my operating position at the side of the road I had a nice big rock to set the rig up on and it was a very pleasant day sitting in the sun shine. Dave was still busy at the repeater site so I made the 3 km walk back down to my ute when I was finished.

Thanks to all the chasers thanks for reading.

Ian vk5cz ..