An easy and accessible summit but busy with other climbers
This is a brief account of my SOTA activation of this summit, with a few tips that may help aspiring activators!
Rojar is situated on the coast overlooking the sea and beach. As it was so close to where we were staying it was an obvious summit to activate, although only worth 1 SOTA point.
Parking is easy in a large car park off the coastal road just under the summit. Alternatively from Tejita you can walk along the beach and start the ascent from there. The ascent is along well used footpaths and the summit can be clearly seen - just keep walking up!
There is plenty of space on the summit, but as it was so busy I struggled to find a discreet place to set up my antenna. Walkers were staying on the summit for 10-15 minutes or more, enjoying the view with their packed lunches! In the end I found a spot on the sea side of the summit, just out of view of the trig marker where most people went. A metal caged Solar Panel provided a useful anchor point for one end of my dipole with a bungee cord.
I did not fully extend my Sota pole, but used a few sections to give it a little bit of extra height in the middle.
I dropped an SMS to Andy EA8/GM6ZAK who was holidaying on the island and we had a quick 2M FM QSO to start the activation. Unfortunately 70cm did not work for us, so I proceeded to self spot and started calling CQ SOTA on 20m. I managed 8 further QSOs the furthest of which was with Italy. As with all activations on Tenerife I was using my FT 817, 5 Watts.
No comments:
Post a Comment