Previous Activations: 0
Height: 582m
Points: 2
Snakes: 0
Tesla battery used: 40%
Link: https://sotl.as/summits/VK7/SC-068
I’d been stuck at home for a week with my first dose of the dreaded C and needed to get out in the bush again. I checked the sotl.as map for summits south of me that hadn’t been activated before and had road access that went somewhat near the activation zone. I found a 582m two pointer to the west of Dover in an old logging coup that unfortunately doesn’t seem to have an official name so we will refer to it by it’s SOTA designation VK7/SC-068.
The summit was approximately 90km away which Google maps said should be about 90 minutes of driving. The last 20km were to be on gravel roads that eventually became logging tracks. I headed south stopping at the Dover top shop for one of those annoying ham salad rolls that are full of amazing stuff and really tasty but laid on an open roll for presentation making it impossible to eat without reconstructing it to allow it to close first. I turned right onto Esperance River Road just south of Dover and was pretty pleased when a big 4WD camper pulled over on the gravel to let me past. A good quality but not very wide gravel road wound it’s way steadily upwards following the Esperance River until reaching the forest reserve campgrounds at the bridge.
A bit past the camp grounds I turned left onto Caseys Road and soon entered an active logging area. The road steepened and alternated between recently cleared area and thick bush. There were several spots that opened up on the edge of a steep cliff showcasing an amazing view that I unfortunately didn’t take a photo of. I left Caseys Road and turned left onto an old logging spur called The Avenue which looked a bit sketch for my Tesla with very little clearance but I pushed on. About 4km short of the summit I was stopped by two trees that had fallen across the track.
I threw my pack on my back and walked the 4km to the summit. It was a steady uphill climb with a couple of steeper sections but all on well made logging tacks. The area had been logged many years ago with some huge stumps left either side of the track.
Map of the walk from my car showing where I activated from. The actual SOTA summit is to the north west of my location but that would have required bush bashing and my eventual location was well within the 25m activation zone. The contour lines on the map below are at 10m increments so at no time did I drop out of the activation zone.
There was no view at the top so I setup on the track in an area that had mobile coverage and gave me enough room to stretch out the 20/40m linked dipole on top of my squid pole. I started on 40m and the going was tough. I had mobile coverage so was able to spot myself but stalled at three contacts. Jim VK7JDZ had seen my spot and tried to get me over the line as my fourth contact from his QTH but he just couldn’t hear me. I waited on 7.090Mhz for Jim to come up on his temporary dipole he offered to put up in his backyard and was happy to see I could get into the Mt Wellington 2m repeater VK7RHT. I had a brief chat with Jim there then tried calling CQ on 146.500 simplex with no luck. Jim came back to me on 40m with a booming signal on his dipole proving that his vertical just wasn’t getting the job done.
Having activated the summit with Jim’s 40m contact I undid the links on my dipole and moved to 20m. Boom, it came alive. In no time I had gone from four very tough contacts to nineteen. That included several parks, the lovely Roly ZL1BQD in Auckland (I love the calm tone of his voice!) and finished with a summit to summit with John VK5HAA on VK5/NE-014 Mount Brown which is east of Port Augusta in South Australia. A very satisfying day.
VK7ID 