Our original plans were to activate Cuninghams Castel ZS/KN-on the Saturday 22 March 2020 unfortunately I was were not able to confirm access from the land owner, so we decided on Comries ZS/KN-208 which is situated near Ixopo, the trip through the forest was un-eventful, although it was clear the track leading up to the summit had not been used in sometime, in some place the grass was so tall that we could not see in front of us, as can be seen in the photo
We reached the summit later than planned, once there we set up the station in our normal way, Adele set up the radio and connected the battery while I erected the antenna, this normally takes us between 10 and 15 minutes before we on the air.
When you look at the surrounding country side you realize just how blessed we are in South Africa.
Condition were not too bad, I had arranged with Eddie ZS6BNE to try and have a contact with him via the satellite AO91, unfortunately I was not able to connect with the satellite which was disappointing , we soon made 9 contacts, at this point we decided to pack up and move to our second summit which was Mpongweni ZS/KN-195 which was about 30 minutes’ drive from where we were, although the GPS took us on a route that had us at a dam that had recently been built and the rode was under water, we back tracked and found a shorter road, ignoring the GPS, again I had arranged with Eddie to try and make contact via the AO92 Satellite, once we arrived at the base of the summit, I took my satellite antenna, handheld radio with the other batteries and set off for the summit which was about a 300m hike, leaving Adele to come up behind me with the HF radio and antenna. I reach the summit and soon had 3 satellite contacts in the log, by the time Adele reached the summit the satellite had passed, so we set up the HF station and were on the air in a short while, after 24 contacts we decided that as it was 16:00 and we hadn’t had lunch to pack up and head on down for our coffee and sandwiches.
A 3 hour drive home, I guess for the fun we had it was not too bad
Until next time stay safe.