10 SOTA activators ascended 10 separate summits on Banks Peninsula.
on February 1st for the first ever ZL3 SOTA party. This was no mean effort in the organising well in advance by Geoff, ZL3GA & Mark, ZL3AB both of whom have been guest speakers at the general meetings at Christchurch Amateur Radio clubrooms. We all aimed (successfully I might add), to be qrv by midday local time which equates to 2300z & start by using freq 146.500 on the 2 meter band & then dropping down to HF for ssb & CW contacts further afield if possible.
Well yes; the band conditions were good but someone forgot to tell Mother Nature to provide nice calm weather with sunshine to boot. SHE DID NOT OBLIGE!!!
Cloud cover was so low to the extent that most all us who took photos of our poles & antennas ended up with the same results. An antenna pole that disappeared up into the clouds. Personally I lowered mine down to about 4 meters because of the wind & I think most of us did the same thing. One of the activators remarked later that we should all go back & do the same summit again to see the views that we didn’t see!!!
However, enough grizzles & gripes because despite the cold conditions we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in the camaraderie that ham radio brings.
All of us started descending our summits by about1:20pm (0030z) to make our way to our favourite cafe at Little River to share tall tales & true of the legendary past over mochas, lattés & tea & fill the rumbling tummies.
The next day ZL/G4YBU activated two of the summits we did & endured temperatures of 36 degrees Celsius. Go figure. Tim told some of us later that it was so hot his cell phone shutdown & his paddles malfunctioned.
Did we enjoy the cold weather?? Nope.
Did we enjoy having drops of water dripping down on us from our masts & antenna? Nope.
Did we enjoy having to uncomfortably shield our mics in our jackets from the cold strong winds? Nope.
Would we do it again?? YOU BETCHA WE WILL…
Total summits activated = 10
Total qso’s made 150 plus with a couple more logs to be downloaded so it could climb to 160 quite easily.
A special thanks to all our chasers for your contacts & support.
Photo & Author Rick ZL3RIK
