This was a joint activation with Andrew Moseley VK1NAM.  We met at 6:30am at Weston, ACT, and arrived at Mt Ginini around 8am.  Ensuring we complied with the SOTA rule of entering the activation zone on foot, we parked about 40m below the summit and walked up with the equipment, with some attached to a luggage trolley.  This reduced the number of trips up from the car, but the trolley was still lumpy with Andrew’s massive collection of SLA batteries on board.

We got onto 2m SSB and made a number of contacts with VK3BJM, VK1KW, VK3VL, VK2BXT VK2KOL, VK3II, VK3EJ, VK3ES, VK3AJN and were called by VK3KH on a peak that did not last long enough to make a contact.  To make the most of the aircraft enhancement peaks we tried to work each station using both our callsigns. These contacts were made using a FT857 running 40w output, to a 4 element yagi.  The mast was a 4m painter’s extension pole with a guying plate attached mid height.

At about 9am we got 40m going with the IC703 and continued on 2m with local contacts on FM.  40m seemed to have very selective propagation at that time of day, with contacts possible from some vk3 portables into the Canberra area but not available to us, presumably due to being just inside the skip (exclusion) zone for that frequency.  That situation gradually changed and by 11AM we were able to work any stations others were working.  Ionospheric propagation always has its interesting behaviour.

While we had qualified for our SOTA activator points for the summit, we tried to stay on air long enough to give chasers and other activators the contacts they needed.  Finally around 11:30 we thought we had exhausted the possible contacts.

Other bands were checked but available contacts were nil.  There was quite a bit of interaction between the IC703 and the FT857 when using two HF bands, not surprising given the close proximity of the antennas.  Separating the antennas by at least their own length to reduce that problem would be a good plan for future joint activations.

Calls worked on 40m were VK3KAN, 3DET, 3MRG/p, 1RX, 3ZPF, 3PF, 3YY/p, 3HRA/p, and VK1RX and 1XYZ were also worked on 2m FM.

Weather conditions: very windy, quite cold.  I wore a few extra layers and was not warm at any stage.  The mountain area was in low cloud for an hour or so after we arrived but gradually cleared up giving us the typical Ginini views.