I accompanied Ted VK1BL on this trip.  Ted with Dave VK2TDN, Jack VK2TRF and others in the Sydney area have been verifying their equipment and antennas for contacts on microwave bands up to 24 GHz.  He invited me to make the trip and do some SOTA from the summit.

On arrival at the lookout planned for the microwave contacts, I started to set up for the 2m activity and became concerned about the validity of the location, a lookout on the north side of the mountain which I had never operated from before.  It is located somewhat downhill from the actual summit marker. But was it too far down to qualify as a legitimate sota operating site? Remembering that SOTA activations need to be carried out from no more than 25m vertically below the actual summit.

I remain envious of Ted’s recent purchase of an IC905 which covers all bands from 144 to 5.7 ghz, plus 10ghz – if you lash out another king’s ransom for the 10 ghz mast head module.

The main aim was to verify the path from Mt Gibraltar to a site in Castle Hill, western Sydney on 2.3, 10 and 24 Ghz.  Ted invited me to join him on this trip and I was very pleased to get out of the house, having been stuck inside with a recent bout of illness.  I took my 2m Hourglass antenna and FT857, a 7AH battery and the usual pole and tarp, sandwich, apple, water etc.  Following the example of Andrew VK1AD I also took a thermos of hot water to make some post-activation tea.  As it turned out the tea was enjoyed on a different summit. But more about that later.

The above photos were taken on an expedition earlier in 2026 and are here simply to show what the lookout site is like. I did not take any photos of this activation, I seemed to get busy with other matters…

When I first contacted Compton Vk2HRX on 2m he suggested that the lookout was very likely outside the activation zone for the SOTA summit.  He knows the summit well and has investigated the options for operating positions away from the comms gear at the summit. I then started to survey the altitude and confirmed that according to the GPS in my iphone 17, my initial operating position was 3m below the estimated activation zone, though my antenna on a 6m pole probably was about 3m above that line.  To remove all doubt I packed up and moved my station across the road, about 20m up the road and about 5m uphill towards the hilltop, basically at the edge of the scrub. I reckon I made a reasonable effort to ensure I was operating from within the AZ.    The phone indicated I was about 21-22m below the summit altitude. You need to allow a minute or two for the altitude indicated on any GPS-driven altimeter to stabilise because the calculations for altitude are more critical than for lateral locations.

My QSO log already contained 4 or 5 contacts made at the lower position but I reworked all but one of those contacts, later excluding the earlier contacts from my sota log.  The new site did not allow me to rework Chris VK2DO at Batemans Bay.  Chris was still workable at his home location as VK1DO (he runs remotely operable stations at both locations). Attempts to work Bill VK1RT on CW were initially positive but signal levels didn’t allow completion of a contact.  Thanks for trying, Bill. A snippet of voice was heard of VK1MA.  All other contacts were into the Sydney or Wollongong area, but the delays caused by the location problem meant I may have missed out on some Sydney contacts, which were all worth making for challenge scores at around 100km.  Gerard VK2IO was worked on his ancient FT736 with a low 100 hz hum on ssb, and a second contact was made on CW (huge chirp effect, definitely a problem in the DC supply!). On the other hand, lunch time on a Sunday may not be the best time to optimise a 2m log.  The early morning is far better. 

All up, 6 valid contacts logged for the challenge. Longest distance worked was Chris Vk1DO at 150 km, shortest distance was VK1BL who was only 100m away and definitely outside the AZ, using my modified Quansheng as an ssb HT.  540 km probably added to distance score for challenge but far more significantly there was a 2.5% increase in total score due to activating summit #41 for the challenge. So total km now 46675 and multiplier 41. 

General stats.  No change to s2s score. 6 contacts claimed.  4 activator points earned.  This was Activation #784, activator score now at 2876.  

On the way home we visited Mt Wanganderry VK2/IL003 which I may operate from for the VHF field day next weekend.  Ted may use it as a microwave location in future.  This made an ideal place for us to have lunch and a cup of tea. The view towards Sydney is just as good as from Gibraltar, I think.

Thanks to Ted for inviting me to join him on the trip and for doing all the driving.