SOTA on Lanzarote – 3 Summits in 1 Day 2

During my visit to the Canary Islands back in January I spent some time on the volcanic island of Lanzarote. While here I activated all the possible SOTA summits.

On one of these days I tackled 3 summits and here’s the report.

Equipment for the day was my Elecraft KX3, SuperStick vertical antenna, iPad for logging and about 5 litres of water!

 

 

Hacha Grande (EA8/LA-006)

Points	1
Height	561m
Band	10
QSO’s	26
Parking	On a dirt track just off the main road. I parked just before the lane starts to switchback up.
Highlight	Friendly Lizards at Summit, making contact with M0TVU who was using only 1 watt and activating this summit for the first time on the 10m band.
Lowlight	Not much – to gripe I would say it’s a long old trek for one point 😉

This was my first summit of the day and conveniently you can park on the same dirt track off the main road for this and  my next summit (Pico Redondo – EA8/LA-007). You walk up the switchback route until you get to a goat farm, then you can either go left for Pico Redondo or right to Hacha Grande. I chose to go to Hacha Grande as it was further away and I still had lots of energy!

The walk up is easy enough, there’s a faint trail you can pick up that goes up the ridge of this summit:

The way is marked by rock piles, just follow these and eventually you get to the summit which is marked by a concrete post trigpoint.

While setting up a trail runner arrived as well, impressively he’d run up! He was the only visitor I had on any summit this day.

As I was sat there setting the Elecraft KX3 up, two lizards came right up to me, they were black with flashes of turquoise on their side, quite beautiful and very friendly:

After spotting myself on 10m the pile up quickly arrived with Bob G3VXJ being the first in the log. It soon became apparent that EA8 to G was in good shape and 10m was very much open. G6TUH, M0IML, M0IBC, G0RQL, M0MDA, G4BLH, M6KVJ, M0NTC, M3FEH, M0TVU and GI4ONLY were all worked as well a number of other European chasers.

Highlights being CU3AA from the Azores and RA3PCI located in Central Russia. 26 QSOs were made within 32 minutes of operating, not time to hang around though, still another two summits to activate!

Time	Call	Band
11:58z	G3VXJ	28MHz
11:59z	G6TUH	28MHz
12:00z	CU3AA	28MHz
12:01z	M0IML	28MHz
12:02z	M0IBC	28MHz
12:03z	G0RQL	28MHz
12:04z	DL8DXL	28MHz
12:05z	M0MDA	28MHz
12:06z	G4BLH	28MHz
12:07z	M6KVJ	28MHz
12:07z	DJ1SD	28MHz
12:08z	M0NTC	28MHz
12:10z	M3FEH	28MHz
12:13z	ON5SWA	28MHz
12:14z	OK1DPU	28MHz
12:16z	M0TVU	28MHz
12:17z	DF5WA	28MHz
12:19z	I0KHY	28MHz
12:20z	EC8AXS	28MHz
12:21z	DO1CKP	28MHz
12:23z	M0BSV	28MHz
12:24z	RA3PCI	28MHz
12:25z	F6GOE	28MHz
12:26z	OK2TS	28MHz
12:27z	GI4ONL	28MHz
12:30z	ON4FI	28MHz

 

Pico Redondo (EA8/LA-007)

Points	1
Height	553m
Band	10m
QSOs	29
Parking	Same as for Hacha Grande
Highlight	First time the summit has been activated on the 10m band. Working EB9MKV (Ceuta and Melilla) for a new DXCC
Lowlight	Quite a rocky summit, watch out for the large cacti!

After packing up on Hache Grande I descended back to the goat farm and took the path to left (instead of back down the dirt track to the car) which would lead me right up to Pico Redondo.

The ascent was a bit more tricky due to the loose rock and the midday heat which was baking me.

I quickly deployed the KX3 and vertical and put out a CQ call before spotting myself, Karl M3FEH must have been monitoring my previous frequency of 28.360MHz because he answered straight away. Once I’ve established a frequency is clear I’ll usually voicekey my KX3 and setup the spot on my phone. Karl beat me to it this time and spotted me.

I chose 10m again on this summit and this time North America had woken up and were active.

I made contact with N2BTD, W1OW and N4EX from across the pond. A little nearer to home a whole bunch of G stations rolled in, including GI4ONL, G6TUH, M3OPG, M0MDA, M6KVJ, M0IML, G4WSB, G0TDM, G6ODU, M0IBC, G0RQL (Don must have taken nap as he’s usually one of the very first callers), G0HRT and G8ADD to finish up with.

During my QSO with Brian G8ADD a US station popped up telling us to QSY, Brian quickly set them straight saying I’d been on frequency for the last 30 minutes and that they should QSY. I can only imagine that conditions had improved on 10m and now they were starting to hear me and vice versa or maybe they were just rude? Either way shortly after I cleared the frequency anyway as I needed to pack up and I still had another summit to activate.

 

 

 

 

 

29 QSOs in 40 minutes:

Time	Call	Band	Mode
13:50z	M3FEH	28MHz	SSB
13:51z	GI4ONL	28MHz	SSB
13:52z	G6TUH	28MHz	SSB
13:54z	F4EPP	28MHz	SSB
13:55z	M3OPG	28MHz	SSB
13:55z	MOMDA	28MHz	SSB
13:57z	M6KVJ	28MHz	SSB
13:58z	N2BTD	28MHz	SSB
13:59z	M0IML	28MHz	SSB
14:00z	W1OW	28MHz	SSB
14:01z	G4WSB	28MHz	SSB
14:02z	N4EX	28MHz	SSB
14:03z	DL8PXL	28MHz	SSB
14:04z	GOTDM	28MHz	SSB
14:04z	OM1AX	28MHz	SSB
14:05z	ON4FI	28MHz	SSB
14:06z	ON5SWA	28MHz	SSB
14:08z	G6ODU	28MHz	SSB
14:08z	EB9MKV	28MHz	SSB
14:10z	OE6WIG	28MHz	SSB
14:11z	M0IBC	28MHz	SSB
14:12z	DF8K	28MHz	SSB
14:14z	G0RQL	28MHz	SSB
14:15z	S52ON	28MHz	SSB
14:15z	F8CZI	28MHz	SSB
14:16z	OK3KW	28MHz	SSB
14:17z	G0HRT	28MHz	SSB
14:19z	DL8DXL	28MHz	SSB
14:20z	G8ADD	28MHz	SSB

Atalaya De Femmes (EA8/LA-002)

Points	2
Height	608m
Band	10, 15 & 17m in that order
QSOs	23
Parking	Village of Femmes at the base of summit
Highlight	Third and final summit of the day! Also the first time the summit has been activated on the 10m and 15m bands.
Lowlight	The commercial antenna installation makes this one ugly summit to operate from!

This was the last summit of the day and to say I was tired was a bit of an understatement, to make things worse the summit itself is an eyesore. The commercial antenna installation covers a wide range of VHF and UHF antennas, I didn’t count them but there must be at least 50 here:

I setup a short distance away from the antennas and braced myself for QRM. I started on 10m to see what was happening so late in the day there, a good start no QRM and N4EX, DL1DVE, VE2JCW, N2BTD and NE4TN were worked in quick succession but it became obvious that 10m was closed back in the UK.

Next I retuned the vertical for 15m to see if I could hit the UK and after sending a spot I worked G6TUH who told me he couldn’t hear me on 10m earlier, only the US stations working me! I also managed to work 2E0YYY, G0RQL and GI4ONL amongst some other European chasers.

After this activity died down I re-tuned the vertical for 17m, which is quite a tricky band to reach a low SWR with the SuperStick. Still, after a spot I worked G6TUH (again), G0TRB, WA2FON, 2M0NCM (who said he’d called me earlier on 15m but I hadn’t heard him) and G6ODU. A few other European chasers were worked as well.

The sun was very low in the sky and I was done for one day. 23 QSOs were made in total. In hindsight 20m would have yielded a better QSO rate at this late time of day.

Time	Call	Band	Mode
16:32z	N4EX	28MHz	SSB
16:33z	DL1DVE	28MHz	SSB
16:34z	VE2JCW	28MHz	SSB
16:36z	N2BTD	28MHz	SSB
16:41z	NE4TN	28MHz	SSB
16:51z	G6TUH	21MHz	SSB
16:53z	EB2GKK	21MHz	SSB
16:54z	2E0YYY	21MHz	SSB
16:56z	CU3BL	21MHz	SSB
16:57z	G0RQL	21MHz	SSB
16:59z	OK2PDT	21MHz	SSB
17:01z	F/DD6DE	21MHz	SSB
17:02z	GI4ONL	21MHz	SSB
17:13z	G6TUH	18MHz	SSB
17:14z	G0TRB	18MHz	SSB
17:14z	EA2DT	18MHz	SSB
17:16z	WA2FON	18MHz	SSB
17:18z	IK1GPG	18MHz	SSB
17:19z	2M0NCM	18MHz	SSB
17:21z	EA2CKX	18MHz	SSB
17:22z	DL8DXL	18MHz	SSB
17:25z	F8CZI	18MHz	SSB
17:27z	G6ODU	18MHz	SSB

Conclusion

Three summits worked in one day, lots of walking, not much food, but a lot of fun! All three of these summits demanded proper walks and I was truly shattered after finishing the third. I retreated quickly to my hotel and sunk a few cold beers in a vain attempt to rehydrate (not recommended).