Earlier in the week, I had a job near Echuca. We had to deploy a portable mobile phone tower for an event my company was hosting.

With that job done, I had some other work in and around the district to undertake, on the way home, i was driving through the central victorian town of Heathcote and had planned a quick sota activation on Mt Ida. This hill sits to the north of the town, the access road is a well maintained road that leads you around 3.5km to a picnic area just below the main summit. Its well maintained as the site has no external (240v) power running to it, all communications gear on the mountain is powered by a diesel generator that runs constantly. The track is kept in good condition so this can be easily refilled as required. The summit has a gate blocking the last stretch to the peak. Parking by this gate, you are just outside the activation zone, with a short walk up the hill to the towers and activation zone.

Once at the top I looked for a spot to setup, I headed past the Trig point and comms equipment and down the other side a short way to some rocks and shade and set my self up using these. The squid pole was strapped to a rock and some smaller rocks used to hold the base in place and I ran out my link dipole on 40m.

I reached into my backpack to get the paper log sheets out, and didn’t find any.. 🙁 id taken it out to transfer the log from the last activation and clearly not put it back. Thankfully on my iPhone i had the app, HamLog installed and electronically logged a sota summit for the first time. I had always chosen paper over technology for logging in the field as its always seemed faster, i still think its slightly faster, but i may continue to use technology to log from now on,it solves the, whats the time issue, but needed two hands to hold and type, we shall see..

It was a nice afternoon, and I was able to work a number of stations, only working 40m for this late afternoon activation. Then packed up and continued on my trip home.

Date:11/Nov/2014 Summit:VK3/VU-009 (Mt Ida) Call Used:VK3BQ Points: 1 Bonus: 0