Friday, January 14, 2022

Friday 19th November 2021: TF-014 Roque de Jama

 Straightforward summit worth 4 SOTA points, not much room at the top

This is a brief account of my SOTA activation of this summit, with a few tips that may help aspiring activators!

The Summit is accessible from the village of Roque with plenty pf parking available (Main road is the TF565).

 

From the village I walked along the minor road Westwards until I found the access path between two houses.  It is not signposted, but I was guided by the picture on DF6XP's very useful report of this activation.  The house has been spruced up a bit since DF6XP's picture in 2017 - Access is to the left where the white car is.


From here the summit is visible but the footpath is not clear - I ended up making my haphazard way to the top, zig zagging and clambering over rocks.  It is not too challenging, just needs a little persistence!  The terrain is rocky and covered with prickly pear cactus, so I was glad I had my long trousers on.



The summit's peak is very narrow/pointed and only accessible by rock climbers, but there is a useful flat ledge just below that is suitable for activation.  The hill sides either side of the ledge
are steep, so there was no ground spaceto anchor my inverted V elements.  I did try extending my Sotapole, but was concerned it could roll off the hill if too clumsy!   I was careful to keep hold of water bottles, connectors etc for fear they would cascade down the hill!

I found suitable rocks to string my Dipole between and propped it up in the middle as high as I dared.

 




I dropped an SMS message to EA8/GM6ZAK who was holidaying on the island and we had a quick chat on 2m and 70cm FM to get the activation off to a start.  I decided to just try 20m SSB, and after a self spot managed a further 10 unique QSOs.

Happy with the morning's activation I descended the summit, trying (and broadly failing) to plot an easy route down.

Just one final activation the following week: TF019 Rojar


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