SOTA Activation of Slavnik Summit (S5/BR-012)

Some days ago, on 25.06.2016, I went to Slavnik summit in Slovenia, very close to Trieste, about an hour drive, to try my first SOTA activation here in this area. The summit is 1028 m high, 4 points, and it is located nearby the small village of Podgorje, Koper.

Map

The actual climbing to the mountain took about 2 hours, tourist tracks starting from the village at about 500 m altitude up to 1028 m. The view from up there worth the effort getting here, you can see all the coast line of the northern Istria peninsula and the cities of Piran, Koper and Trieste.

View from S5/BR-012 Slavnik

My thought initially was to arrive there before midday to catch some activity on 20 m before King of Spain SSB contest, but this never happened, and I arrived couple of minutes after 1300 local time.

Fishpole vertical antenna for 20 m

I installed the fishpole, with three anchors right close to the summit post, 5m wire vertical antenna with same length radial for 20m,  wired up the equipment, FT-817 and a 7Ah SLA battery, and start CQing. Barely managed to make 2 QSO and the band started to get busy with the contest, where I’ve made also a couple of QSOs. After a while I moved to 17 m band for a few more connections and then I saw a rain approaching and start packing.

S5/YO4HHP on SOTA S5/BR-012

I was a little disappointed because the rain stopped couple minutes later after we left, but decided not to return, at least I was happy I’ve tested the ground around here and wish to return for other nearby SOTA summits.

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