TUESDAY 10th May SV/IO-003 Psarudi

A pleasant 40 minute walk to a fantastic activation site, but poor mobile signal for self spotting

It is possible to drive along a track all the way to the summit where a monastery is sited.  If you do this, join the track west of the town - don't try to drive through the winding village streets!

I decided to park in the village and walk up, and tried to find a suitable parking space above the village.  I was following Google Maps which took me up through some extremely narrow residential roads above the main road.  I decided that the car was likely to get damaged, and worse, if I met a car in the opposite direction and needed to reverse I might become stuck!  I managed to return to the main road where I parked safely.

I walked up through the village, on winding paths past houses to the start of the trail.  At this point you can follow the winding concrete track to the top (which links back to the main road at the west of town) but I took the more direct trail to join the road further up.  It is fairly steep and rough; stout shoes recommended.

The summit is found by walking around the monastery, past a lovely viewpoint and to the summit encircled in stone.  There were a few walkers around and the summit is a bit small for a private activation - poles and wires are likely to get in the way of tourists!  Fortunately to the right of the monastery is a perfect open space with 2 ready made shacks to choose from!  I measured this as 445m altitude, so well within the activation zone (summit 460m).

Once set up, self spotting was difficult as my mobile signals very weak, but by walking around I got a SMS out on the WIND mobile network (data was non existent). 

20m was noisy and I struggled to get 4 QSOs initially, although my first was a summit to summit.  I had plenty of time and with such a nice 'shack' set up I decided to try PSK31.  Hard work as my Samsung tablet (which was driving the software) kept switching the output data from headphone socket to speaker, but did manage a psk QSO.

I switched to 40m, and despite a self spot no takers, so  back to 20m  on a different frequency for 5 more QSOs, ending with a second PSK contact

Before calling it a day I packed up and walked up to the summit to try 2m FM.  One local ham on the island came back to me and we had a pleasant chat rounding the activation off nicely.

Picture above shows the summit

Next activation: November 2022, Table Mountain in Cape Town