Sunday 14 April 2013

SOTA Activation Mt Taylor 856m

Mt Taylor, being right in the Canberra suburbs, is a popular summit to activate, not very hard to get to and ideal for a morning activation.

Drove to the end of Waldock St in Chifley where there is a walking track up the mountain.


The track continues on the right to the Summit Foot track, a closed off gravel road for access to the radio masts on top.


After a short steep bit good views over Woden towards the North of Canberra appear. Black Mountain with its tower can be seen, Lake Burley Griffin and Woden town centre.


Looking back down the steep track.Canberra looks good in the Autumn with the leaves changing colour.


After about a 10 minute walk reached the summit, Mt Taylor Trig.


Near the base of the trig was a flat topped rock, used this as a table for the FT817. Another nearby rock made a handy seat, with my mouse mat for comfort.


Strapped the 7m squid pole onto a leg of the trig, ran one leg of the dipole down to a nearby log.


The other leg of the dipole ran across to a nearby tree branch. Had to make sure the wire was fairly high so the constant stream of walkers, joggers and dog walkers didn't run into it... While operating even got fitness fanatics doing pull ups on the bars of the trig!


Got on 40m at 9:30am and got a nice pileup of chasers going :)  Usual chasers from VK1/VK2/VK3. Into the new UTC day worked several again. Worked Paul, VK5PAS and Andy, VK5AKH portable on  VK5/SE-017, South Hummocks for a VK1-VK5 S2S :)

Also worked Andrew VK1NAM on VK1/AC-012 Orroral Hill on 2m SSB and FM, and on 40m.

Another portable station I worked was VK3YE, Peter, pedestrian mobile on Chelsea Beach in Melbourne, only 51 but good signal. Peter is fairly famous for his pedestrian mobile operating, check out Youtube.

All up 33 contacts. About 11:30am packed up and headed back down for lunch in nearby Woden.


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