We have had some early autumn rain so it is safe to start on my list of SOTA summits for 2017.

Tothill Range vk5/se-010 is not far from home and access is quite easy with just a phone call to the land owner to check if it’s ok to go there.

It’s a steady climb along the ridge heading south as long as you gradually gain some altitude as you go along the  path made by the Kangaroos and Sheep, it only takes about 40 minutes to make the summit.

Once you get up through the rocks for the last part of the accent it’s a good view out to the north and Porters Lagoon is full of water off in the distance.

These two Sheoaks have grown considerably since my first visit to this summit, that is Lagoon Hill off to the south the only other summit in the Tothill Range.

This is my shack for the Activation . I started out on 15/17 metres with the link dipole hoping to contact my Japanese friend JP1QEC who was also activating but a mix up in the time difference made me miss Mot this time. I did get a surprise when Peter VK3PF/4 called me on 15m CW for a S2S QSO from  VK4/SE-045 my first of many S2S for the day.

I set up the 40/20 m link dipole with 80 m extensions added and worked the local VK5’s MBD WG FMJC NWE on 3.6 mhz. Back to 40 m and lots of VK QSO’s followed on 40m SSB and S2S with VK1AD/2 VK3ANL VK1FWBD/2 and VK2IO on 4o m CW.  VK5BJE/3 VK3TUN were activating VKFF Parks . Changed band to 20 m CW to work a group of vk4 ops and another surprise was a call from Fred KT5X. I was checking my phone for spots and noticed NJ7V on 18 mhz CW activating W7A/AW-040 Arizona West,  sure enough I could hear him on 18.085 cw .  I had already taken down the 15/17 m dipole so just to give it a go the kx3 tuned the 20m dipole and I started calling him. Once I heard a pause then a  ..–.. from him I knew maybe he heard me. I may have confused him by including S2S with my  first call, so I went to work just sending my call sign only but it was not really working. I never had time to re deploy the 15/17 m  antenna so I joined up one of the 40 m links on the northern leg of the link dipole to make it an OCF. Much to my surprise he was able to get my call sign so then we went to work on the RST swap, he was 519 with QSB , I was hearing him quite well and he finally ended up sending  229 report back to me . That’s an almost impossible signal level, so I was glad he must be a very experienced cw operator and did not give up on my chance at a first VK5 to USA S2S CW QSO.

Yes !! that feels good.

Packed up ready to leave Tothill Range a memorable activation this time.

Thanks for reading and see you on the next one.

Ian VK5CZ . .

Today was a special day as it is one year ago today my Mother died from Parkinson’s Disease and I was out on SE-007 that day activating so I thought it appropriate to be out there again today. It was a great day to be out, weather was really nice with a gentle southerly breeze at the summit just enough to fill the flags. 

After parking the SOTA transporter at the main gate it is about 2.5 km to the top from the entrance to Forest Departments land.

I find walking straight along the creek line once off the road the easiest path to take and you soon are in the old forest that is left after a big bush fire that destroyed probably 75 % of the forest a few years ago.

There is a dam at the end of a plantation of hardwoods and that is where you pick up another boundary track around the plantation of pines. This is where the pain begins as you make lots of gain heading up to the saddle of the range before heading south to the summit.

This time I must have been feeling a bit fitter as I made the gate in the old stone wall without too much puff and pain but stopped for a rest anyhow.

I got a photo looking north towards Jamestown from here and what a great view of the remaining forest that is left.

This time I activated south of the trig point because there was some shade from a few of the remaining pines right on the top and the old fence gave support to my squidy . Other times I have been on this summit it was really windy so I set up behind the stone wall out of the wind.

The Fire destroyed all of the pines on the eastern slope of the summit apart from just a few right on top so that was my shack for the day in the shade.

Used the KX3 and 20/40m Sotabeams link dipole and I made some local contacts with VK5WG and VK5NWE on the VX8G on 2 metres.

The SSB contacts were all on 40m and I got through to vk2 vk3 vk6 and vk7 then made some qso’s on 40m cw and got a nice surprise to get a call from ZL1BYZ on 20m cw near the end of my activation.

Total of 14 qso’s  with some double up qso’s on ssb and cw.

Thanks to all the chasers for the QSO’s today .

Vale Valery Joan McRae

thanks for reading my blog.

Regards from Ian VK5CZ ..

I had the good fortune of company on the first long hike for SOTA season 2017.

Ian VK5IS decided it was about time to do his first activation, we met at Laura early in the morning to make the rest of the trip in 1 vehicle. The Battery is about a 4.5 km hike with a short uphill to the top of the ridge from Stony Creek head water. After a nice egg and bacon toasty sanger and coffee we set off in good time to make the summit before UTC roll over. We were strolling along in good spirits swapping chatter and it suddenly occurred to me I did not have my Go Pro camera with me although I remembered I had taken it out of the Ute.  We were about 1.5 km into the hike and after thinking about the said cameras whereabouts I remembered putting it on the running board at the back of my Ute while I locked the canopy. So the decision for me to unload my back pack and get back to the Ute asap before maybe a passing opportunistic thief may see it and score a $500 Go Pro added to the urgency. Ian made himself comfortable in the shade and I made the round trip back to find the camera where I had left it and we were able to get on with the hike to the summit.

Once the Summit was reached and gear set up We made contact on 80 m first with some of the local chasers even enough to qualify the summit . I used the 80 m extensions clipped onto the usual SB link 40/20 m dipole and had good comms on 80 m locally .

Ian checking the path to VK5NWE on 2 m simplex before trying 40 m.

The 40 m band did not disappoint this time conditions were good to the Eastern states and Tassie and once Col VK3LED got a spot up for us Ian was in a pile up for his first activation.

In the action .

Ian’s many years of operating and his relaxed style made it a nice experience for the chasers and I am sure he enjoyed doing his first activation and I hope he does some more in the future.  The weather was warming up and the shade had gone from our spot on the ground so I made 5 quick cw qso on 40m cw and made a couple calls on 20m to no answer so we packed up and headed back to the Ute. For some reason on that summit the mobile phone won’t connect to the internet even though it seems to have plenty of signal, so we could not spot for 20 m . I just called on the usual frequency anyhow.

Cheers and thanks for reading my Blog

Ian vk5cz ..

After the SOTA frenzy on Black Rock Hugh and I enjoyed a coffee break in Orroroo then took the scenic drive past Hogs Head summit to show Hugh the access gate to that summit. We turned off at Hornsdale Corner and headed up through the very new wind farm on the Nadjuri Range for the last activation on our way home.

Sorry about these photos my poor old camera is really hard to keep going it now has a fault opening the lens at times and I really must get a new one before I go activating again.

It is a short hike from the ute probably one kilometre of so and not a big climb to the summit. We did not stay long as it was quite hot by now and very windy, we managed a short score of contacts each with only one S2S this time as most of the morning activators had moved on too.

Black Rock is Off in the distance from here this summit is about 20 km north from Jamestown.

It was nice to get some new chasers this time on 40m and I even made contact with VK5NWE and VK5IS on 2m with my hand held rig.

We used Hugh’s KX2 for this activation and went tag team on the mic working the chasers quickly and getting under way home. It was a great day out with lots of activity for SOTA and the unseasonal cold weather made it possible to get to a couple summits we may not normally access during summer. Probably run up another 300 km on the Colorado for the day in the quest for Old Goat. I am now 607 activating points .

Thanks Mike for the access to this summit .

Thanks to the chasers and S2S contacts

Thanks for reading my Blog.

73 Ian vk5cz ..

Seeing there were thunderstorms around Orroroo last week and after consulting with the owner of Black Rock property, he granted permission to go to the summit. I picked Hugh up early Sunday morning and we headed off to the summit arriving about 8 am. It was still nice and cool with high humidity as we were going to drive through some very long grass as the track to the summit has not been used very much lately.

Low range in the Colorado we gently made our way to the parking area near the peak and never found any surprises in the long grass on the stony track to the top .

That is Depot Hill across the Valley, we missed doing that summit in 2016 on the last trip

SOTA transporter parked and after a feed and think about where to set up, it was very windy and cold for middle of summer.

We decided the best place out of the wind would be under the rock ledge up near the top on the North Eastern side of the summit. It was about 30 minutes to hike around the side of the Summit on a goat track and slowly make it to the top. It was extremely windy so we never bothered to go to the actual trig just for a photo opportunity as it was time to set up and get the activation underway before UTC roll over and try to stick to the Alert Time we set.

View out North West at some of the summits we activated early in the year We are very lucky to have access to all summits around Orroroo but one which I hope to do some sweet talking to the land owner and get it back on our list. On the first year of SOTA in 2013 we accidentally entered his property after gaining permission from the wrong land owner and got sternly asked to FO and not come back. Might ring him and ask him for next year might not.

Well the reason to get a summit in the log New Years Morning is we have a time window that we can turn one visit into two Activations before and after the calendar year changes in UTC time. Many VK Activators do the same every New Year as we are in a prime time zone for such an activity. Its also a great way to get a double score and get two Activations into the one visit to a summit.

Hugh is ready to start logging as many as He can work, I am not sure how many Activators were out on summits but we made 9 S2S before role over and 5 after. We never had time to search around the band because it was very busy working S2S and chasers who came to the frequency we used for the whole activation.

Used the KX3 this time and my link dipole with the 80m extensions to start out and glad we did because Nev VK5WG could not hear us on 40m .

Perched up on the ledge it turned out to be quite warm out of the wind. For a change 40m was working well to the Eastern States making it possible to work lots of S2S and chasers and catch up with everyone for the end of the season.

Birds eye View of the Squidy and SOTA beams link dipole and our ledge for the morning below out of the wind ,

Thanks every one for all the contacts and it was quite a job to upload the csv logs, sort out the S2S part of logging, edit the video for Facebook and get a Blog written up. Judging by all the SOTA activity over the day I bet lots of others have been busy logging too.

Thanks to Peter for permission to enter his property we hope to get there in a better part of the season next time.

Thanks to all the chasers and activators for the contacts.

Thanks for reading my Blog .

Regards Ian vk5cz ..

Morning drive out this morning to meet Hugh again to finish off our weekend of SOTA around Orroroo one of my favourite places to stay . As you can see the grass this year is very high and extremely dried out now so we decided not to go to Black Rock for the afternoon activation. The temperature was rising all the time as we started to walk to Peaked Hill and was it 33 c by the time we got off that summit .

Peaked Hill is only a 2 point summit but a tough climb through the rocks near the top and it took about 45 minutes to walk in from the Ute. We found an old track which will take us further next time in the winter but it was hard to find and overgrown for this time of year.

This is about half way up looking back to the west at the Olladie Hills another summit we don’t have access too.

This is my view from the top looking at Black Rock and Depot Hill summits we had to let them go this year but hope to get to activate there next year in a better part of the season.

Great summit to activate but not a lot of room for the antennas, my 80m extention wires were almost running along the ground but we managed to make contacts.

My KX3 had a baby !! no not really its Hugh’s KX2 which I like very much, we just have to spend a bit more time with the hand book and sort out some SOTA frequencies in memory and learn a bit more about it’s functions.

I do like the larger internal speaker it is much better than the KX3 speaker which rattles around in the tin box if you are not careful on the AF control or a really loud station calls unexpectantly. So I am still raving about this KX2 rig, still like my KX3 and won’t be buying one just yet, but of course leaving my options open.

A sign from above I think its telling me it’s too hot today.

We only had 4 qso’s each on 80m and did not stay on the hill for long due to the rising temperature.

I had trouble with the internet on my phone as well it was losing the internet connection, I had to drive south of Orroroo on the way home before I could get access to cancel the afternoon activation.

Happy smiling red faced KX2 owner , we did get some sun burn on this trip.

This is my last trip up north until next year so time to concentrate on some other activity for a few months, I can feel withdrawals for SOTA already.

Thanks everyone for you interest in my blogs and I hope to be back soon.

Regards

Ian vk5cz ..

Met Hugh at Bendleby this morning to head out to the first summit along the station tracks.Hugh had a plan to drive another track to save some walking but unfortunately one creek crossing was washed out and too deep to get across so we set out from the same place as last year. This is a hard hike with lots of smaller hills and gullies to make it hard to head straight to the summit.

Sheering quarters holiday cabins at Bendleby Range property the owners kindly let us 4 wheel drive on their tracks for no charge. We gave my Colorado a run today, tracks are easy going nothing to hard except one creek crossing that stopped us.

Hugh with his trusty GPS setting the pace again .

After many smaller hills and gullies the trig point is in sight it took us nearly 2 hours to hike about 4 km so it’s pretty hard going.

Finally though we made it to this old trip point the wind was strong but nice and cool with full cloud cover helping to keep the flies away.

Hugh hard at work trying to find a chaser who were a bit slow to start with but we finally got some contacts on 80 and 40 to both qualify. I was able to give the KX2 a run on cw this time and I must say it is great.

On the way back to the Ute we made a different path making it shorter back to the flat lands the hiked along a fence line on the track we could not access . It proved if we could drive that track to the end the summit is about half the walk but still hard slog.

After lunch we headed to Eke Hill on the southern side of the property so we had to drive about 30 km of more tracks to get there. I only engaged 4 x 4 for a short while on a rough section near the parking spot.

I always enjoy this part of the hike to Eke Hill up to the top of this water way is about half way.

Looking back from where we started we are now on the shelf above the water way.

Amazing views to the south.

and the north

Hugh working the pile up on 40m

I got to work some cw and ssb today. Good conditions on 40m with lots of chasers.

Good bye to Eke Hill until next time

Thanks to the chasers and the Luckcraft Family for the use of their tracks and hills.

Thanks to Hugh for more ground work following up permission and access .

Thanks for reading

Ian

CZ e e

This week in November Hugh and I finally got the chance to get back up north and finish off these out standing summits on our list. I have a cabin in the Orroroo Caravan park and the air conditioner was very nice when I got back this afternoon. Early this morning I went to The Bendleby Ranges property to meet up with Hugh as he was staying there in the sheering Quarters accomodation. Its about 50km extra for me to travel but I like this cabin here and it can be a good escape from hay fever that has been bothering me for about 6 weeks this year.

While I was waiting for Hugh I had a chat with Ian VK5IS on 3.680 mhz using my trusty old Hustler set up with good signals on the band this morning . Hugh came along and we headed for Price Hill about 30 km further up the track and met the station manager who was busy fencing when we turned up. He was a very nice fellow and he knew about Amateur Radio from when he was a boy scout as he had taken part in several JOTA camps. After a rather long chat and showing him my KX3 he agreed it was a lot smaller than the big Valve radios he remembered from his scouting days.

As you can see the grass is very thick long and dry, we were very careful not to park the hot vehicle in the long grass and seeing the track was completely over grown we decided to walk from here.

Hugh was setting a great pace and we were still not sure how far it was, but Hugh’s GPS said about 3 km so we just had to head in the general direction as long as we gained height as we went. The summit is further south from the hill in the back ground of the picture so finding the best way there is always a bit tricky on a first time visit.

Break through at last the summit range is in the back ground and Hugh is on a Goat track now so that should take us up into the higher parts of the range . Typical stony rough terrain for the Flinders with low trees and native grasses and lots of Spinafex Grass to stick in you through your jeans.

Its a nice feeling when you finally reach the top of a range and you can see even further beyond the sight of a steep climb in front of you , This is my view towards West and Quorn is way off in the blue hills, my other favourite SOTA destination. We then had to walk about 1 more Kilometre along the top of the range to arrive at the old fallen down Trig that is now used as a Roo shelter on a windy day.

Had the shirt undone , as it was not cold but we did have a nice breeze from the south east direction causing us to find a spot on the western side to set up as it was probably too windy right on top.

The Solar Panel runs a UHF CB repeater on channel 1 which was quite active and very handy for the local land owners to keep in touch on their daily jobs around these large Pastoral properties.

Hugh is the proud owner of a KX2 which we were able to give a run this activation . As we got to the summit a bit later than we thought the gang of chasers on 80m were all doing other things so we made no qso on that band.

But after much calling we finally attracted some chasers but not many, Hugh just making 4 qso’s and I made 6 after him. That is a bit too close for comfort .

I must say I like the KX2 it works just like my KX3 in lots of ways but it has a better speaker that can handle higher output or volume levels so even with quite a strong wind it was easy to hear everyone. Getting a few of the function buttons worked out and turning off a few unnecessary settings was achieved without the hand book . One thing with the Tune button being used for a second function it can take you into a menu if you push and hold instead of tapping it for a short period of time. I think the KX3 with two fold out legs makes it more stable when perched on a rock too as the KX2 only has one fold out leg and the stiff mic cord can make it easy to pull the radio off its footing if you are not careful.

On the hike back down we took a different way trying to find a track that might give more chances to drive in a bit closer but we found the track was washed out quite badly with lots of short sharp creeks running across out path and it was 4 km to walk back so our more line of site way up was shorter and no harder.

Bit of a foot note here near the end, I called this summit Price Hill which is it’s rightful name but in the SOTA summit list it is named Prince Hill which I will request an update soon.

Thanks to the chasers and thanks Hugh for organising the permissions for the properties and thanks for reading my Blog.

Regards Ian

CZ e e

This weekend in October was my last chance to get to Black Hill before the weather starts to get too hot.

It ended up being a 596 km trip but I started out on Friday after work and drove to Orroroo for another overnight stay in my favourite caravan park. Up early Saturday morning for the rest of My journey to Black Hill which is about 130 km from Orroroo. I found a short cut half way between Carrieton and Cradock which turned out to be a well maintained road across a pastrol lease property. Lots of Kangaroo activity in the early hours of the morning, I had to slow down several times to let them get out of my way and avoid hitting any. The road then enters Holowillena Station and winds through the hills for several kilometres before Black Hill becomes into view.

I am north of Holowillena Homestead now and it if time to make a sked contact with Ian VK5IS on 3680 kc . I use a Hustler loading coil on this extra long aluminium shaft which works very well. I don’t drive along with this antenna on it’s a bit too long but I needed a stop any how as my Porridge was ready to consume for a bit of carbo loading before the walk I was about to do.

A well used track by the look with Black Hill off in the distance .

This mob of Emu’s were standing around as I went by it’s the best photo I could get they did not wait for me to get a closer photo .

Well into the Hike by now very rocky with lots of low bush and spinifex grass the SOTA transporter is down below parked off the road in a creek bed. I think where I park, the land is leased by another station further north, so I hope it’s ok I did leave a note at the Ute but I did not see another person at any time out there.

Stony up lifts running at a differing angle to the saddle makes it tricky as they get higher on the ends and before you know it is too high to get off back on track. lucky the goats know where to go and I could follow their path mostly.

This part is quite steep and slow picking through the bush and rocks but the summit is now in sight and I think I arrived very close to my Alert time but there is no Phone out here so once again I asked Ian and Nev to listen for me on 3680 kc . These days with low propagation on 40m locally I have been starting my activation’s on 80m so I set up right from the start then unclip the extensions and get on with 40m later . VK5IS VK5NWE and VK5WG called me on 80m  the band was very quiet none of the usual static crash you might experience on 80m. But they all had very good signals and my log was under way.

My set up in the bush was ok but there are not many places to hang up a dipole in clear space, part of the antenna broke from getting caught on something when I was swapping things around.

It was quite pleasant to start with but the wind was building and I had to deploy another bungy to help hold the squidy in place.

When I started on 40m I was unsure what would happen with no phone coverage to Spot but Ian VK5IS set up a Spot for me and I had 5 quick QSO’s waiting in line for me which was great. I made a S2S with Andrew VK1DA/2 and Matt VK1MA/2 chased me up for another S2S . Then VK3PF,VK3CAT and VK3SQ were soon in my log. After a few CQ calls on 15m with no signals even heard I did a swap to 20m with no respons to my CQ calls. In that situation sometimes the RB network will pick up a CQ SOTA on CW and Spot you on SOTAwatch but nobody answered me so  I decided to pack up and head down.

On the way down I noticed Wilpena Pound and the ABC Range off to the north .

Got back to the Ute ok and found todays walk a bit easier than the first time Hugh and I came here and tried a different way to make the top . Now for the 300 tired kms home .

Thanks for the contacts everyone

Thanks for reading and taking an interest in this obsession SOTA .

Ian

CZ e e

We finally got a chance to get to Waite Hill VK5/NE-066 again for some more Huffing and Puffing on the climb to the summit.

It starts out right from where we park the Ute so there is not really an easy way to make any ground on this summit,although it does get easier eventually as you get to the top of the range then we just pick a way along the top for a while .

We are about to start the climb to the summit  which is the further est hill in the picture.

Hugh normally set the pace on the climbs and I puff along behind, this time I shot some video to put on the SOTA face book page, now that I have come to terms with the editing software from GoPro.

Once we get this jump up behind us the climb becomes more gradual along a rocky goat track.

It’s great when you make the top of the range and can see the other side, most of the hard work is done by then.

Last rock scramble to the top then it’s SOTA time.

Hugh’s good work at standing this post up in the rocks has survived 3 years so far .

So on with the activation report.

As usual with activating first I had a small pile up but when Hugh went second the chasers dried up.

In future I think Hugh should go first and work the pile up then I can fall back on cw if the SSB chasers head off to find someone else to work. Thanks to the chasers who put spots on for us too we had a patchy link to the phone out there but it was mostly good. Getting to the summit is a bit of a challenge at times and meet the deadline of the original Alert, this time I think we missed by about 30 minutes. Hey its the weekend and this is supposed to be a fun activity.

It was a very low score for both of us really, we didn’t run out of log pages on this one.

40m to vk3 was probably the best path, we had some contacts to Mt Gambier again which seems to be a good skip distance as well.  VK5IS was my only vk5 contact on 40m, Hugh worked VK5EE on 40m then we had to add the 80m extensions to the dipole and worked VK5WG and VK5MBD on 3.680 with good signals.

The extensions for 80m are clipped onto the ends of the 40/20 link dipole then run out further using their own end strings to tie off beyond the ends of the 40/20 dipole. It works really well around vk5 from our experience lately and brings in locals as you may expect to copy them on 40m under good conditions.  Sorry we did not try 20m it was getting quite hot and windy with the northerly change blowing in plus we had another track to check out on the way home to try to shorten the trip to this summit. On the Western side of the property we meet another road which ends up on a track just near the southern end of this range of hills and if we could get permission to enter from there it would cut off about 28km of road plus 15 km of station tracks and several gates to open and close . But it’s a work in progress Hugh did get the land owners name out of the rather wary farmer we spoke to who was his neighbour. But that is fine if it happens it will save us time and travel that is all, we still have to climb that hill.

Thanks to the chasers and spotter who made the activation achievable

Cheers from Hugh and Ian

CZ e e