Today I’ve hiked up with my father to Siete Picos, SOTA summit EA1/SG-005 (2138m), to participate in this month’s national V-UHF contest. We arrived and set up around 07:30UTC and worked until 11:30UTC, where activity became low, as most possible contacts were already done and people started to leave in order to prepare lunch. The equipment was a Yaesu FT-817ND and an Arrow yagi antenna (3 elements in 144MHz and 7 elements in 432MHz).
Below is the map of stations worked. My position is in red, stations worked both in 144MHz and 432MHz are in green and stations worked only in 144MHz are in blue. The black station is the odd one that I could only work in 432MHz. This can happen if you catch them first in 432MHz, then a big mess with several stations arises and you’re unable to tell them to change to 144MHz to make the contact and decide that you’ll catch them in 144MHz later, but you don’t manage to find them later.
Propagation seemed very good today. Stations as far as 100 or 200km where as strong as if they were local, both in 144MHz and in 432MHz. Most stations were worked without too much effort (QRM permitting, of course). My results have being much better than in last year’s August contest, where I worked from La Maliciosa, SOTA summit EA4/MD-007 at 2227m and got the 5th position and EA4 district record in the 6 hours category. Also, I think that this contest has being my best this season.
