Mt Alexander ZL3/CB-758

 Mount Alexander is a very nice private summit in North Canterbury, near Waikari. Contact John ZL3MR for access details. I worked John when he did the first activation in July 2021 so it was a good opportunity to Complete it and add another Unique.

The weather around the country had been terrible during the week but Saturday dawned calm and with no rain so off we went. After checking in with the farmers, we headed up the well maintained farm track to the top. It's an easy 35 minute walk with about 300m height gain.

Upon arrival we were greeted with expansive views from an unusual perspective, looking back to Mt Grey, Amberley and the curve of Pegasus Bay. 

Left: Amberley, Pegasus Bay and the Port Hills in the distance, Right: Mt Grey

There was a stiff, warm NW wind on the top but finding shelter was easy, there are a few buildings and towers up there and plenty of large Matagouri.

Trig photos taken we set up two HF stations, John picked a lower site for SSB using his G90 and 40m EFHW while I used the trig to bungee my pole to for the KX2/40m EFHW for CW.

We both worked the locals on 2m FM to qualify the summit. We had a few bursts of data breakthrough from the commercial installations but 2m was still usable. I switched to 70cm, called CQ fruitlessly for a while until Roger ZL3RC called and said I had lots of people calling me.... He had turned on the amp and pointed a beam at me to get through! The FT70DR front end was obviously being blocked by the high power  commercial equipment on UHF. Definitely not a site to take your Baofeng folks!

On to HF and the bands were much better than the solar figures of SFI = 117   A = 26   K = 4 would suggest with contacts on bands from 40 through 10m including VK, JA and W6. In fact I clocked up a PB of 50 contacts for the activation. 

View from the lunch spot showing the Hurunui River 

Weather was soo good we worked the UTC rollover on HF and VHF before packing up and having lunch on-summit looking West over the Hurunui to the foothills and Southern Alps. An uneventful walk back down, another chat with the farmer and off to the Waikari Cafe for debrief! A very pleasant day out in late winter.

Repeaters: Didn't try but all Canterbury should be accessible

Access: Private farm (Mt Alexander), contact John ZL3MR for access details.

Time: 35 minutes from the farmhouse, 2.5 km and ~300m gain.