SOTA European Tour 2019 Day 1

This is Day one of my SOTA European Tour 2019

FL/NO-144 Mont des Cats. (1 point summit 164 M)
Latitude: 50.7832, Longitude: 2.6677

This is an easy drive on summit not too far away from the Belgium border. I had planned to make this a quick 2M activation Hi Hi that was not going to happen as 2M's was dead as a DoDo. So I quickly erected my SotaBeams linked dipole. I spotted myself and gave a call out on 20M which followed with 2 S2S's, IN3ADE/P (Markus) on I/AA-158 & DL1CR/P (Chris) on DM/NS-122 and another 16 QSO's.

As can be seen from one of the photos above there is a very large mast about 100 meters away but I didn't summer any break through. Michelle my XYL accompanied me on the tour and she was my official photographer for the tour lol. As we planned for 4 summits today we only stayed for about 30 minutes then packed up and started out journey towards our next summit in Belgium.

ON/ON-010 Baraque Fraiture. (8 point summit, 651 M )
Latitude: 50.2509, Longitude: 5.7302

This was a good 3 1/2 hour drive with having a stop for a lunch break. Yet again another drive on summit, the trig point is within the local wooded area right by some type of communications mast. This area is enclosed within a fence line and I had read that most operators use the local car park just where I had set up.

The bands seamed a little quite on this summit I only managed to log 4 QSO's, Ireland, two Italy and one England. The car park was large enough to hold maybe 100 cars so plenty room and we were the only vehicle there so we had no disturbances.

ON/ON-011 Sur Clair Fa. (8 point summit, 601 M )
Latitude: 50.3306, Longitude: 5.9775

On to summit number three of the day, this took about 45 minutes driving to get close to the area. The sky was starting to very dark and there was a thunder storm coming. The light levels dropped a little and we had to drive up through a forest. Michelle was not a happy camper on this one. The tracks were rutted and water logged, if I did not have a 4x4 this summit might have been missed.

Yet again a quite Band for QSO's with lots of lightning spike's heard, so I did not want to stay long. Michelle was not happy at all, we are never going to get out of here she was saying Hi Hi. I said don't worry I am finished now after only yet again another 4 QSO's. This time Sweden, England, Wales and Croatia.

The car after we managed to get out, I was going to get it washed whilst we were away but it never happened. I have been back two weeks and still not had time Hi Hi.

ON/ON-001 Signal de Botrange. ( 8 point summit, 695 M)
Latitude: 50.5016, Longitude: 6.0924

The final summit of day one. I had prearranged this summit to coincide with TDARS Wednesday night meeting. So as long as the band's were open I had people waiting for me. This again was another drive on summit. A large car park with a large mast, there was only two cars there so I parked in the far corner and set up my gear. This was my SOTABeams Linked dipole and my Yaesu FT817.

I gave a call out on 20M and was answered straight away by M0JZH/P (John) we passed reports and a few pleasantry's then followed another 8 QSO's with various club members including G0OOQ (Sean) who was at his home QTH listening in. All over in about 20 minutes just in time for the rain to start. I packed up quickly and we made our way to our first hotel for the night. This was a hostel in Eupen about 15 minutes drive away. It wasn't too bad except probably the most uncomfortable bed I have ever slept in.

The end of day one, four summits with 456 kms and 4 hours 35 minutes of driving. Easy summits but a lot of work to complete.Thank you to all of my chasers on day one.