Having an opportunity to activate a few summits I decided to head west of Canberra, travelling out towards Tumut on the Brindabella Road past Picadilly Circus on the saddle between Bulls Head and Mt Coree.  I realised as I drove down this road that I had never driven on this section before.  It is narrow in places and not unlike the Mt Franklin Rd as it passes Mt Franklin, narrow and with a few hundred metres drop on one side of the road.  However it is wider and reasonably well surfaced the lower you go down to the Goodradigbee river.

After climbing back up to about the 1100m level heading west I drove past a few traces of snow from the past week.

One part of the road had a bit more snow and I stopped again to take a snap.

At Mt Tumorrama there was no snow but still plenty of blackberry thorns.  I did find a short piece of RG58 Coax with a BNC plug on one end.  The other end looked like it had been broken off – possibly by a mountain goat?  I didn’t take a pic of that.

At Yankee Ned Hill, the walk up the southern slope revealed more traces of recent snow.

The temperature on the hill was cool, the temperature in the car indicated 8C but I think it was colder on the hill.  My hands were very cold by the time I packed up and walked back downhill.

Conditions were not good, but I managed to qualify both summits, one one both CW and SSB.  80m didn’t work as well as I hoped it would.  Too early in the day perhaps for longer distances.  I heard a brief burst of a voice after one of my CQ calls – I thought it may have been a VK3 but it was only a second of so – don’t know why that occurred.  Meteor scatter?  Sporadic E? (not all possible answers are likely to be valid)

I used the IC703 and a ZS6BKW style antenna fed with 300 ohm ribbon on this activation.  Its big advantage is band agility.  No need to lower the antenna to change links when changing bands.  It is lighter than the linked dipole, mainly due to the many links I have in mine (two for each band).

My LiFePO4 battery appears to be behaving like it is on the way out. It is 4 years old but for the first year of its life I was apparently not using the right type of charger.   One cell seems to die much quicker than the others and goes down to 3.0v or below, after which I stop using it.  I may have to replace it and this time I will use the balanced charging option religiously.  I previously misunderstood the battery charge options and thought it was applying a balanced charge to all cells in standard charging mode.  Not so.

Other equipment: my cardio fitness seems to be returning.  This is not a difficult hill to walk up, and I was pleased to be able to do that without stopping or feeling uncomfortable.  I guess I stopped very briefly to take the photos but in general I can report that 3 months after my operation, the engine is running well.

Afterwards I drove to Tumut then Gundagai and returned to Yass via the Hume Highway.  I didn’t fancy driving down the bush track to Wee Jasper at dusk, when it is kangaroo feeding time and they are at their most unpredictable and dangerous.

Another few points for the activator tally.