More activations in Fuerteventura: Montana del Arena & Montana de Caima

I climbed two more summits in Fuerteventura on 30th November 2022. There were no people here as they weren’t Caldera summits. I only worked one member of the North Yorkshire SOTA Association on my second summit EA8/FU-036. This was Pete M0HQO who lives less than half a mile from my home QTH in Pickering! 20m CW was the band and mode. I had many contacts on both summits - 77 on EA8/FU-031 all on 20m, and 78 Qs from EA8/FU-036. The Flora Fauna 44 crowd found me on both summits I reckon. So many blank names in my Saisie SOTA name file to bother filling in names from QRZ! As many CW operators will know, the operating standards of some of the FF operators leave a lot to be desired. I operate full break in and there were lots of them transmitting at the same time as I was. I only black listed one - he isn’t a SOTA guy - ON5GM - it took me over 2 minutes to actually work the chaser station I was calling thanks to him. He sent me his 73s but he isn’t in my log…

The photos I took aren’t so good. I had an early start so I could get back to the holiday village for my dinner and activate two summits. Both summits took around 30 minutes each to climb. EA8/FU-031 was more unstable ground, like walking up a snow slope, or on crumbly coking coal. EA8/FU-036 was much more stable to walk on and I could actually get a couple of tent pegs driven in to the ground to support my dipole. 15m band was pretty good on the second summit EA8/FU-036 (VE2JCW worked on 15m CW), but clearing the 44 ers on EA8/FU-031 held me on 20m for a long time from my allotted period, so when it eventually dried up on 20m SSB I packed up. I got plenty of S2S Qs on the second summit, and Fabio IK2LEY/P was worked S2S on both. I am having a (Juerg HB9BIN style) “lady day” tomorrow and hope to activate another two in one session on Friday morning, which will be my only day left operating before we go home on Sunday. Thank you to Victor @GI4ONL for two good GPX tracks for todays walking, both summits I believe, where he was the first activator.

Five pics on and around Montana del Arena EA8/FU-031, best I could do, I did not use the toilet / bidet on the way back to the car!

The next photo's were taken on and around EA8/FU-036 Montana de Caima:

SOTA Activations on Fuerteventura - EA8/FU-042 Calderon Hondo

It would have been great to make 70 QSOs on Calderon Hondo this morning, my 70th birthday, but I only made 55 contacts before things dried up. The logs are in. The final QSO was a nice one though, Art HB9CEV/P on 12m CW, the final one of my four S2S contacts, pretty good for a Monday before the Winter Bonus points period starts… Lots of people came up the hill after me, I would not have climbed it if it weren’t for SOTA.

Volcanic craters seem to fascinate some folk, not me! Nasty dusty places. Nowhere to pitch my pole, ground too hard to drive in a tent peg, so I relied on a small cairn I built out of lava rock to support the mast, albeit at a poor angle. KX3 10 watts and a 20/15/10m link dipole made up specially for this holiday. As well as working Art on 12m I also worked Mike G0HIO, using the 15m dipole via the ATU. I plan to take a break tomorrow and go out on Wednesday and Thursday. This time we are on holiday it's not a SOTA Tour.

A few snaps, starting with the parking place. It took me 34 minutes to climb to the highest point, 1.9 km, 242m ascent. I don’t think that’s bad for a 70 years geezer who was diagnosed with heart failure and prostate cancer three years ago...

The abandoned pushchair was interesting. I saw a couple with a young child on my way around the Calderon on the way down. I guess they will use the pushchair again on the flatter sections on the lower part of the slope on the way back!