SOTA 1st May 2019

Some quick planning, had four teams set off to activate summits on a public holiday (Workers Day) in ZS land, we are hoping to make this an annual event.

Louis, Adele and I set off at 05.30 earlier than planned as we were not sure if we would be able to gain access to the AZ as it is situated in a plantation, our backup plan was a summit that Adele and I had activated the previous year, although the GPS was programmed, we still ended up having to make a 6 point turn to get back on a different track, much of the road had not been travelled on in awhile and we had to remove a branch which covered the tracks (need to buy a chainsaw) and assess a water logged section, not wanting to get stuck in the mud, Louis’s initiation to SOTA was fun filled excitement.

Once we arrive at the AZ we set up station and called CQ, our first contacts were with Brian ZS6BV and Peter ZR6VJ who were activating ZS/LP 066 with Vernon ZR6V, our first S2S for the day. The Secunda club divided up into two groups, one group went with Christo ZR6LJK to activate ZS/MP- 004 in the Wakkerstroom area and the other group went with Lucas ZS6ACT, to activate ZS/GP-014 in the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve. We managed to have S2S contacts with all three groups with a total of 28/27 contacts, unfortunately we were not able to make contact with Div 1,2 and 5. One of the highlights for our group was our first 60m contact from a summit with Pieter ZS6XT, for this contact we used the YAESU 857D and a endfed antenna.

Activation teams on the summits were as follows:

ZS/LP-066 Schnellskop : Brian (ZS6BV), Peter (ZS6VJ), Vernon (ZS6V)

ZS/GP-014 Suikerbosrant: Lucas (ZS6ACT), Magda (ZS6MMS), Wynand (ZS6JD), Johan (ZS6LD), Johan (student) and Theuns (student)

ZS/MP-004 Ossewakop: Christo (ZR6LJK), Detlev (ZS6BAB), Willie (ZS6WBT)

ZS/KN-208 Cowries: Sid (ZS5AYC), Adele (ZS5APT), Louis (ZS5LS)