Unsuccessful activation VK3/VC-031 Arthurs Seat

I had taken my son and his fiancée to Rovers in Seaford and had exactly 2 1/2 hours to spare. SOTA summit Arthurs Seat is 35 minutes drive from Seaford which would give me about 1 hour to activate the summit.

Totally unannounced and severely under prepared I parked in the top car park, grabbed my FT817 and linked dipole and headed across the wet grass and then down the walking track out opf the activation zone. Once out of the zone I set the antenna in a tree and started calling on 40 m.

No luck. The band was dead at 8:30 pm. I tried 20 and 15 metres but got a similar result. If only I had been better prepared and taken an 80 m antenna. There is always plenty of activity on 3.5 MHz. In desperation I tried 2m FM and found Ron VK3AFW in mid-QSO with Tony VK3CAT. Working these two stations from the small whip antenna I then looked around for some more contacts. None were found on the available time so I had to pack up and head off without the 1 point for the activation. Most unusual for me!

73

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