Three straightforward but different hills made up a nice day of activations, worth 2 points each
While my wife walked around the Vinuela lake, I activated the 3 summits shown in July 2025. I started with the furthest from the lake.
EA7/MA-102 Masmullar.
I parked just off the track at point P below and followed the easy path shown.
There was one gate saying 'private property' but as the footpath was clearly shown on the map, and there were footpath signs further up, I assumed this gate was just to stop vehicles:
The summit is relatively flat with various activation options. As the sun and heat were intense I opted for shade under a tree, with a large flat area in front to set up my sotapole and bandhopper.
I was using my new 'Tactical Mini' pole from Sotabeams, which is 6m tall as opposed to 7m for my usual 'Tactical 7000hds'. The antenna apex rests at just over 5m high and I had experimented back home with the apex angle as I was concerned that the lower apex (and wider angle) might reduce my bandhopper's effectiveness. I had found that by pinning the antenna at the end of the 40m wire (as opposed to the end of the string) the smaller apex angle was better. SWR on 20m was lower and there seemed better coverage of the 20m band at acceptable SWR. I only wanted to operate on 20m, so this is what I did here.
I managed 16 SSB QSOs on 20m, including 2 Summit to Summits (HB9 and EA7). The furthest contact was to a Ukranian station UW8SM.
I then packed up, descended and drove to the next hill:
EA7/MA-098 Comores
This is a very unusual summit in that it is in the middle of a town! That makes it easy to reach, and one can potentially drive right up to, but also potentially awkward to activate with buildings and other people to contend with.
I parked just outside the town's gate (blue dot) and walked up the steps shown as dotted lines on the map below:
The summit is composed of private and public buildings with the risk of compromising the residents' privacy. I walked around a small air conditioned building, possibly housing all the equipment for the tramsmitter tower next to it. Although that was away from publc view, there seemed little opportunity to set up my antenna without getting too close to the mains electricity feed to the building. I walked around and found an open area of pavement tucked away from the main road. Although this was next to a private house, the pavement looked public and mainly bordered by a public building. I attached my bandhopper to opposite railings and pushed up the apex, leaning the Sotapole against the public building roof:
The wall provided a bit of shade and comfortable operating seat. Wanting this to be a quick activation before I raised any concerns, I quickly made 7 SSB QSOs on 20m, packed up and left,
Incidentally, my KX2 was picking up some interference from the transmitter tower, on every 5 or 10 kHz or so on 20m there was a tone, so I was careful to choose a frequency to avoid this QRM.
I then drove on to the next summit:
EA7/MA-115 Cerro Agudo
On the map a driveable track goes right past the summit, just outside the activation zone. I parked just off the track and scrambled up the hill. There was a slightly beaten path to the top, but be prepared for low thorny bushes and uneven ground - this is not a marked footpath (and possibly on private land).
The summit has a convenient trig point to which I attached my pole. There is plenty of space to fully deploy a 40m antenna, so my 3 band bandhopper could be fully utilised.
I managed 10 QSOs on 20m, 1 on 40m and 2 on 15m (using the 40m antenna on ts 3rd harmonic).
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