My nephew Dale and his new bride Amanda decided to get married so not to miss an opportunity to get a summit in the log Halima and I went down south for the wedding and got an activation on the way to the wedding. Well it all went to plan accept for the rain that fell while I was activating. The rain seemed to come from nowhere across Backstairs Passage the sea between the mainland and Kangaroo Island. I tried as best I could to keep the water out of my gear but this rain was totally unexpected and I was totally unprepared  for it so a supermarket bag I had in the back of my ute went someway to protect my gear. I made lots of 40m qsos on cw this time and then another pile up on ssb which was great.  The rain got me soaking wet  and I tried to push through the contacts as quick as I could before the bag filled with water and got my rig wet. So a short and sharp activation and wet clothes and gear to add to the 1 point for the activation.

 What can I say SOTA fever makes you do silly things, lucky that extra post is on the outside as this is an electric fence along here. Its cow country down south.

 Using my phone to log was tricky, too wet for my paper log but I hope I got them all in ok. I used the FT 857 and bigger 8400 LiFe for this activation and hopefully the rig is a bit more splash proof than the KX3 . Halima can I borrow you hair dryer please.

cheers thanks for reading my blog.

Ian vk5cz ..

With Grape Harvest 2016 finished and some nice weather for this week it was a good opportunity to get a few summits in my legs and log. I decided to activate 5 summits over 3 days and made Orroroo my overnight destination as it has a nice caravan park with great cabins and a friendly pub for PR work and night meals. I left Clare quite early on Monday morning and drove for a couple hours to Wilmington where the turn off is for The Battery summit in the National Park there. I parked the SOTA transporter at the start of the hike and after a coffee and feed I hit the trail for a round hike of 11km.

This parking area is near the Rangers house which is now a B and B, a park pass is required to visit here and I have a full year subscription type pass as you need to pay on line these days if you want to day visit any parks. Probably explains why they are mostly unvisited or people don’t pay they just turn up.

This entrance is across the road and heads in to the northwest direction along the top of the saddle so it is an easy walk for the distance. The 4.5km sign is the distance to the turn off to the Battery lookout and the summit is another 1km from there once you cross over the valley head which is a puff to get up but not as bad as some walks I do.

This is a shot of the other range across the valley with Mt Cavern  in the distance it is the hardest summit I do so maybe later in the season I will tackle it again if I get desperate for 4 points.

This is my shack set up by the box section in a fence on the summit the 2m vertical has become standard equipment to take these days and I can usually round up enough locals on 2m and in this case I made 4 qso’s on 2m.

It’s a great location to set up out in the clear on he fire trail and I made several qso on 40m ssb 40m cw and 20m cw with a S2S with VK5BJE/3 on 40m ssb. The walk back to the Colorado was a bit tiring as it was my first long hike for the season, but a good base training walk with nothing too difficult.  For the last few weeks I have been walking in a vineyard with some gear in my back pack with the two dogs, so I was glad I did some training before hitting the trail.

Thanks to my band of chasers for helping me qualify, I set off for Orroroo via Gummy’s place to shore up some permission for the next day and of course leave some bootleg for him and family.

Next morning after a restless night I was on the road by 5 am heading back out to find Coomooroo Hill in the dark which proved a bit hard. I had never been to this summit from Orroroo side before and there was a very thick fog and I could not make out exactly where I was in the dark. After a rest on the side of the road waiting for picininni daylight to arrive I was able to see an outline up ahead and I found the gate to enter the paddock. This summit is quite easy as I can get half way up in the ute then walk the rest.

The Fog was lifting down here but still some on the summit  made it  very pleasant for walking and I decided to have jeans on for this one because  the low bush will scratch your legs . After making the top I had my wind jacket on to keep out the cool breeze, I got set up and using the 2m vertical into the top of my VX8 handheld I was able to make contacts into Whyalla at good signal levels and worked several of the Crystal Brook gang as well on simplex. I saw some spots from US stations and tried to make a couple S2S contacts, one station sent a ..–.. but then said sri no cpi. There went my chance for a USA S2S something I am yet to achieve. I did however get a call from KD8WTI who gave me a good report for my 8 watts and dipole on 20m. Then KT5X called me and was pleased to have worked his first vk on a summit so that made his day. I worked a few vk’s on 40m ssb to start then saw Mot my JA mate spot on 15m so I worked him S2S on 15m cw just using my 40m dipole tuned with the KX3, VK4RF came through on 15m too but then the contacts dried up so I packed up to head to the next summit.

Foggy morning with the sun out on the Flinders to the west.

My antenna is there somewhere I need a better camera.

Hogs Head summit was my next destination so it gave me a good opportunity to explore more back roads in the area for future trips. There are lots of roads going everywhere out there I could see Mt Robert up ahead so I just kept heading for it knowing the bitumen road was there somewhere.

It was about smoko when I arrived at Hogs Head so another coffee and snack this time before heading off up the side of the hill. It is quite steep and I had lots of spells to try to relieve my burning legs and ankles which seem to affect me mostly when walking up these hills.

As you can see its a ankle burner .

This was my shack for Hogs Head a very nice view to the south with a steady flow of chasers on 40m ssb my highlight for this summit was a call from VK6NU using 1 watt on 20m cw . No locals on 2m this time as they were all busy doing stuff but I made plenty of hf qsos then headed down to the ute for lunch and get ready for Maurice Hill.

Nice stone Cairn on this hill, there are lots of them on various summits we visit .

Great view out to Black Rock and Depot Hill a couple summits we should visit later on, the poor old land could do with some rain it is very dry .

Off to Maurice Hill across the Valley.

Maurice Hill is a good summit to do as it is a nice steady 4×4 climb to the top from the western side. I noticed a new track up the eastern side but it might be a bit too steep for an inexperienced off roader like me. No doubt the Colorado would handle it just not sure about the driver.

Nice area to park and walk the last 50 metres or so and great views from here this hill is right out on its own and slightly higher than the previous summits although still a 4 pointer.

Great view to the south with nothing in the way for a long way that is the Bluff way off to the south . I started on 40m with a good amount of chasers on cw and ssb and some dx on 20m cw long path to Europe which I was expecting at this time of the day. Once again another nice surprise to see HB9AFI on the spot on a summit and better still we made a S2S qso again as I have worked him before. A nice mixture of dx and vk stations on 20m cw this time so I was happy with my day.

Better show the flags flying it was a very pleasant day, so thanks to all the chasers who followed my progress.

Time to hit low range first and trickle down this hill.

I went back to Orroroo for another night of PR at the pub and a nice meal then off to bed early to recover for the next days activation.

I called by the Laura Hospital for a couple hours visit with my mother then I went to Bundaleer Forest to climb New Mount Campbell my last summit for the trip. I thought a shorter walk would be better than a longer walk to Mount Remarkable that I had planned to do.

Its about 3 km to the top and the first half is a nice stroll along a well made road and then you end up in the hard wood section before the forest of old pines start on the slopes.

Its about to start hurting, this is where it kicks up in altitude along the forest track through these pines behind me.

Those trees are about 20m tall and the gain off that track is cruel and I am only half way to the ridge yet so keep hurting.

Others have suffered more than me on this hill building miles of these stone walls .

Miles of stone wall and farmers preparing for next year grain crops.

My shack for the afternoon

I had some good contacts on 40m ssb this time with my highlight for today being a S2S with ZL2AJ on a summit in ZL on 40m ssb. I was surprised at how clear his signal was it was mid afternoon here but probably later over there.

I tried 20m cw but only managed a few vk stations on there with no dx at all even though my spots were out and I did lots of calling. That was the end of my time away gaining an extra 18 activating points for my trouble.

Thanks to all the chasers and thanks for reading.

cu next time

CZ ee

Grape harvest is coming to a close with only 3 more jobs to do to be finished, I decided to get out on a SOTA summit on Sunday. Tothill Range is only about 40 minutes drive from home and access is good with just a phone call to Peter for permission. The walk up is not too hard if you follow the sheep pad which goes up at an angle along the side of the hill then a short scramble to the top at the end of the path.

 This is the new Grape Harvester I have been driving this season, nice machine I always feel safe in the hills in this rig.

I tried the APRS phone app APRStrack , this time for a short part of the walk, it works well but I had to save my phone battery for spots on SOTA watch as well.

 Legs were a bit sore from the morning 60km bike ride. Good view of Porters Lagoon behind .

 This time I took my Alinco 2m radio and a half wave vertical to make sure I could make contact with  my local friends as 40m is no good for short range contacts now days. I made good signal strength into vk5nwe/m vk5is and vk5wg with 5 watts. Future activations I think I will just use my VX8G with this same antenna because it puts out 5 watts also and is easier to carry .

 40/20 m link dipole set up  the small she oak tree is recovering nicely to provide some shade, it was burn badly in a fire up here a few years ago.

 My view out to the east, this old land could do with some rain to freshen things up after a very hot dry summer.

 The view south is Lagoon Hill another summit I visit every year and Little Lake below very dry and empty.

  My shack for the day, this time I used the KX3 and link dipoles . I made 3 qso on 2m fm then 4 qso on 40m ssb and 2 on cw , 1 qso on 20m cw and 1 qso on 15m cw .

Worked vk2twr S2S on 40m ssb and js1ueh S2S on 15m cw but signals were quite low down . I later found I had a fault with my antenna system either the coax or the dipole it’s self, but I have not tested it at home yet to find out what is wrong. My kx3 would not load that well on 15m and once I by passed the tuner it showed a really bad SWR on the rig meter so I have to investigate further . The SWR meter was flickering a higher than normal reading for a cut resonate dipole and I am wondering if the rg 174 is faulty.

 Hard at work, great afternoon out in the hills and its good make a start activating for another season ahead. Looking forward to my trip to Orroroo in a few weeks time for more hiking and activating.

Just a short inclusion of another activation I done over Easter.

I went out to Mt Nadjuri vk5/ne-058 and had a great time working stations on 2m fm 40m ssb and cw and a pile up of dx on 20m cw for a change . It was my best activation as far as all round band conditions and would you believe I forgot to take some photos , my busiest activation in a while and I even heard from some of my regular EU chasers again. Ian vk5is  Nev vk5wg and Dale vk5ld talked my through setting up SOTA csv editor to make up loading SOTA logs easier so I am excited to learn something new that makes life easier. When I go on my SOTA week away I can now take the laptop and blog and upload  my activations at the end of every day.

Thanks for reading

Ian vk5cz ..

It’s now well over 3 years since SOTA has been going in South Australia and I would like to talk about what equipment I have got to use for activating summits. As followers of my blogs some would have read before about me raving of this or that antenna which seemed to work at the time, well some of them are now stored away in my cupboard of experiences. I am now convinced that a  link dipole is probably my final choice cut for the bands I would be most likely use to make enough QSO’s to qualify a summit. Of course filling up my log with as many contacts as possible is a priority to keep my band of willing chasers happy as well. But there is something still in the back of my mind to live the dream by activating and making contacts using an end fed wire via a small qrp tuner into my QRP cw rig. It has taken a while for cw only activations to take place in Australia with Wayne VK3WAM and Warren VK3BYD mainly pioneering the way and encouraging chasers to get on cw and give it a go. I personally have only done two cw  activations, because  early in my time of activating I wanted to be sure I would find enough qso’s to qualify the summits after all the effort I put in getting there.

So this is the equipment I use.

SOTA Beams link dipoles one cut for 30/15 metres the other cut for 40/20 meters with rg 174 coax.

53 foot EFRW and 31 foot EFRW antennas I use with a 9 foot counterpoise wire .

HB-1B 5 band CW rig with 2200 mA battery + MT 1 tuner + EFRW + CP.

KX3 tunes both EFR Wires nicely once I worked out how long to cut them .

My best system for SOTA

KX3 and link dipoles cut to resonance with 4 possible bands .

Logging kit for either CW or SSB .

Accessories for windy summits,  voltage dropping diodes and flags to fly.

Batteries to run KX3 and  HB-1B with charging system.

Higher voltage batteries require bigger charging systems.

I use a 8m squid pole to support my antennas when on a summit.

Fully kitted SOTA transporter.

Thanks for reading .

Ian vk5cz ..

Mount Gawler vk5/se-013 is my first activation for 2016.

The weather was nice and cool and the Tour Down Under cycle race started today so I decided to activate a summit on the way to watch the Women’s race go by at Mount Torrens in the Adelaide Hills..

Parked nearby the set up area the bush is slowly recovering from a bush fire in 2015 easy summit to access .

Lots of burnt out trees in woods and forest country across the road and still very dry from months of no rain this summer .

So once set up I was glad to start out with a S2S, VK1VIC/2 was very clear and strong on 40m ssb so I knew it was going to be ok to qualify the summit and as it turned out I got 3 qso’s from the same summit with VK1VIC/2 , VK1FAJW/2 and VK4JAZ/2 so 3 S2S QSO’s right from get go. Unfortunately no short skip to VK5 again with only a very low signal qso with Ian VK5IS on cw and VK5AO Mait who was just below me in Adelaide, luckily the vk 2 3 and 4 stations were quite strong on 40m cw.

On this summits it is hard to set the antenna up under the trees and I could only run out the dipoles north south direction which would later make it harder to qso to Japan on 15m . The wx was a nice breeze to keep cool but not really fill out the flags all the time.

Once roll over came I went on 40m ssb and made some qso’s mostly with the same chasers I had worked on cw giving them some extra points but with conditions poor for the locals I could not complete a couple qso’s I am sorry.

The Large tree over the fence only allowed me to put the dipole up end on to Japan which probably did not help my signal but with the FT 857 I was running 25 watts on cw . I noticed the internal noise in the 857 is not as quiet as the kx3 and the DSP filtering was turned off helping improved my reception when working hard to pull out the week signals. No man made noise was evident and 15m was very quiet but with low signals and qsb we had to repeat reports several times and keep listening for the qsb to go up. With this type of conditions it is good practice to slow the cw speed down and just send the RST three or four times no other information/chatter.  JJ1SWI/1 Go was on summit JA/KN-020 in Kanagawa and he had the best signal considering conditions, then Mot JP1QEC/1 who was portable in a park was workable as well. Mot is my friend on Face book and I have chased him on summits before from my home, so we were proving the possibility of a s2s one day. I was very pleased NS7P Phil was able to make contact with me, its been a while since I heard from him.

This SOTA station was a FT 857 running 25 watts on ssb and cw the antennas are my newly made 40/20m and 30m/15m link dipoles fed with rg 174 feed line and in this case both inverted V’s were up 7 metres . New wire is from SOTA beams which I think is great antenna wire, the link dipoles are made up from the dipole design on sota maps.org page which has a great antenna design feature. Even down to the length of the support strings needed for my set up with a 8m squid pole and keeping with the 60 deg angle of the inverted V. The software calculates for you the length of wires needed to get the two bands you are aiming for, the length of cord needed for end supports and I call my tent pegs .1m .  Very little tuning is needed to get it resonate in the area I want to operate in if you follow the design plan.

Working the pile up .

Thanks everyone for chasing and S2S, sorry to those who I could not work .

23 contacts plus 2 uncompleted from the qsb.

Thanks for your interest in my blog.

cheers from

Ian vk5cz ..

Now that I have finished my 2015 lap of the Summits I can get access to I will not be activating until after the new year.

Then if grape harvest kicks off I hope to be busy during February March on that job but if we get a thunder storm to dampen down the fire danger I might get a couple summits done during the later part of summer.  I usually activate Mount Gawler when the Tour Down Under bike race is in the Adelaide Hills that way I can do an activation then go watch the bike race go by somewhere in the Hills. Mount Gawler is a safe summit to activate and I never bother to enter the owners property the trig is just a short way over his fence so I set up by the gate. With Japan being on SOTA now I am always trying to work them on 15/17 m and if I get a cool morning I set up out side in the yard to try to work them proving the possibility  for a S2S one day  to Japan. I have made several QRP qso”s to Japan before so no reason why it can’t happen again .

I was thinking of trying a vertical half wave wire when I get the chance to set it up and test it but the weather has been so hot on most weekends its still a guna do project. The last cooler weekend Halima helped me fix my dipoles for the home station that needed some fixing as trees have grown up around them and they needed lifting higher to avoid rubbing on my antenna ropes etc ,this was the main reason they fell down.

  My last SOTA for 2015 at Wagga Wagga.

 Keen to use my new HB1B Mark 3 this year for cw activations.

Been playing with those end fed antennas again and I got a 53 foot EFRW on test at the moment with 6 feet of counterpoise. The KX3 atu tunes it easily on 40 20 15 m with just a binding post and banana pugs to connect it to the rig. Using the FT857 I have the MFJ 904 in use with a list of inductance and capacitance setting jotted down in my log for quicker selection when changing bands. The HB1B has the MT 1 end fed wire tuner to use with the qrp rigs and it has a nice selection of inductance and tunes it easily also on the above bands. So what I mostly need now is some better propagation to give things a work out. I have spent a few cooler evenings down the hill at the test site but the higher bands seem to die off as the sun goes down with not even beacons that readable on 20 or 15 so its a bit hard to round up a qso. I did get a shock on one evening just as I was about to pack up and escape the mozzies flying sorties I put out cq on 40m and got an answer from KI8R much to my surprise. I was running the 857 at 30 watts and USA was directly behind me so the signal must have been going out the back side of the antenna . Being 53 feet long I have it set up to slope down with 10.6 metres on the longer side and the remanding 6 odd metres past the top of the squid pole and lots of cord going out to continue the inverted V shape of the antenna. Not sure what the radiation pattern would actually be or where most of the signal goes , probably lost in the tuner at ground level.

Well 3 years are up since SOTA started off in South Australia on 01/10/2012 and the activating events are slowly getting less not more.

2012   8 summits 26 accumulated activation points with 7 chasers from vk5.

2013  135 summits 339 accumulated activation points with 18 chasers from vk5.

2014  192 summits 497 accumulated activation points with 23 chasers from vk5.

2015  119 summits 376 accumulated activation points with 18 chasers from vk5.

Since we started there have been 21 activators from vk5 taking part accumulating 454 activations gaining 1239 points.

and 30 chasers from vk5 taking part accumulating 7624 chaser points so far from vk5 activators.

Some activators who are from interstate or unregistered may have taken part in that time frame but figures are unknown and some  chasers are not registered with the program so they can’t be easily accounted for either.

Since SOTA got started in vk5 the following chasers have accumulated points from vk5 other Australian States and also DX activations.

2012: 7 chasers collected 237 points, vk5 activators gave out 26 points

2013: 18 chasers collected 9,103 points, vk5 activators gave out 339 points

2014: 23 chasers collected 16,575 points, vk5 activators gave out 497 points

2015: 18 chasers collected 11,402 points, vk5 activators gave out 376 points

Not sure how that stacks up but it seems to me more activators are needed in vk5 and the other problem is the low value of the summits with regards height above sea level and proximity of the summits for easy access.

The activations Hugh and I did this season we easily travelled 500 km each trip for every activation. Some summits were closer for me in the mid north and I did manage to activate 44 summits for this season.

I only have 1 summit left to activate this year that I normally include in my lap but with the weather heating up much earlier I may not get to activate that summit.

Hill se-006 is an unnamed Summit in the SOTA program, we often have Summits like this and just refer to them by the SOTA reference. After an un eventful dusty drive back from Waite Hill we found Hill se-006 just east of Whyte Yarcowie up a dead end road into the property. We saw many Kangaroos here I recon its the most I have seen in one mob in a long time . The track to the summit was quite easy to get along and we headed up to the top of the hill picking a line along the saddle which was quite easy this time. One thing that was new was we had to take a sledge hammer and our own picket into the activation zone as this hill has not trig or trees. We did find a Box Thorn bush on the western edge so we set up there.

 Looking north.

 View to our morning summit .

 View south from the edge of the summit wind farms way off to south.

 Hugh setting up we had a great take off point and antenna was up high.

 Working the pile up.

Hugh made a nice score this time on 40m with band conditions still a bit hard on the closer in stations so I just went to cw when my turn came about. I worked several of my faithful chasers in vk 2 3 4 7 with vk7cw Steve sending with his side winder key which sounds like a bird singing in a tree to me. I don’t hear many on this type of key but as Steve is a master of it, it sounds really nice, bit like a bug key but better I think. Being early morning in Europe I went on 20m cw and straight away had a pile up of EU stations chasing with good signals so it was great to be among the dx after a long spell of poor conditions or timing on the summit. John vk6nu found me this time as well which was my only vk station on 20m and 40m was no good to the west, so glad you found me John. After the rage died down and I run out of EU chasers I went back to 40m ssb to find Nev waiting for me on the ssb frequency and to our surprise he was 20 over 9 this time but an hour before there was no chance of a qso at all. In the quiet location on the summit Hugh could hear Nev but he was not responding to us so we put it down to really high noise and low signal at his end. Adrian came up as well as he was waiting there as well to see if we came back to ssb from cw.

We travelled 360 km this trip which is shorter than usual but with band conditions much better it ended up being a great day out.

Thanks to our band of chasers and land owners for the tracks and Hill.

Waite Hill is a great summit, the highest point in the Porcupine Ranges east of Terowie. Hugh and I left early in the morning to head there as we had two summits for the day planned . It was my turn to give the Colorado a run at some 4×4 this time and we saw many Kangaroos and Emus on the way so we had to be careful along the roads not to hit them.

 Ready for the challenge climbing this one it is very steep and rocky right from go.

  Hugh is off picking the line I have my hat on backwards looking up.

 The summit is up here somewhere, it was about an hour hike.

 Waite Hill Summit highest point in photo.

 Sleepy Lizard using a rock for a pillow getting some sun.

 The top.

 Hugh in the pile up .

We had reasonable conditions on 40m for a change but the skip was still quite long, Hugh was able to work Paul vk5pas but the rest were interstate and Mt Gambier contacts. I made 4 qso on ssb then Tony wanted a cw qso so I went to cw mode and worked another 5 stations. One thing I did not realise when Hugh was on air my KX3 was set to about 3 Watts as I had been testing it in my shack last week and forgot to reset the output power. But we got enough to qualify and get the job done then a steady hike back down to the ute and a bite of lunch before the 4×4 track back to good roads which takes about an hour with Hugh working off the soreness opening gates this time.

Thanks to all the chasers for the contacts and land owners for the tracks and hills.

Once we had lunch sitting under a nice  Southern Cyprus Pine, we got Mitsi under way as best we could on the station tracks mostly around 60km per hour across blue bush country. It was probably 50km of these tracks with gates to get up as far as Yunta before we could hit the Black Top. The mobile phone had been on flight mode for quite a while in the morning so once we got back to service we had to deal with emails and txt messages re what time we may make Nackara Hill. Hugh had Mitsi on the speed limit + on the black top to catch up some time as we had to travel about 40km back down south again then head out west this time to the hill. It was a over grown track into the base of the hill and a big steep climb to the top which we had to walk because a lot of wash outs prevented us from getting up to a saddle which would have been a good launching spot.

Great view out to where we were in the morning I think the bump way off in the distance is Pualco Range.

After much leg burning we made the top, it sure pays to zig zag as best you can and some times you pick up on a contoured sheep track .

 Not sure what happened to this trig point but it is a bit knocked around .

 There was a big mob of flies around here so we moved back a way to get protection and find a sheoak tree to put up the squid pole.

 This old tree has seen it all.

Hugh went first this time and made a nice score then I did also with a nice amount of 40m cw chasers but still no short skip . We both made a S2S qso with Andrew VK1NAM who was keen to pick up our unique summit for the first time and that was the only S2S we made on this trip.  These differing propagation events are becoming a problem for chasers inside the first 100 km or so, we just can not hear one and other .  40m was really good to vk 1 2 3 4 and only stations several 100km away were able to be worked. I worked Amanda VK3FQSO with a perfectly readable signal and she was running 1 watt of power which was an opposite extreme to others we could not hear with higher powered stations. Really hard conditions lately and I hope it is not a sign of what is to come as the cycle really starts the down turn.

 Typical view of the area rocks, saltbush, spinifex and low mallee scrub where it is not as windy and can survive is this harsh old land of ours.

Thanks to all the chasers for giving us the contacts sorry to those who missed out even though we knew you were out there trying. Thanks to Hugh’s good work for liaising with land owners re permission, and off course said land owners for the tracks and hills.

cheers for now

De Ian vk5cz ..