Saturday 7 January 2023

Mt Fyffe ZL3/CB-425

This one has been on the to-do list for a couple of years. 
Dave ZL3DRN grew up on Mt Fyffe Station and has been keen to activate it. Finally the weather and time-off aligned and we planned it for the first week of 2023. Wednesday looked like the best day albeit with cloud and wind forecast for the afternoon. We decided on an early (6am) start to beat the heat and ensure we could activate and get down before the forecast weather arrived.

I picked Dave up at 5.30am and we were on the track at 6.05am. It's a bit of a beast - you climb 1411m of the 1602m height over a distance of 8.5km. It's a relentless climb up a 4WD track with little shelter or shade. 

Biggest Spaniard flower I have ever seen!

We reached the hut at 8am, had a brief refuel and carried on to the top. DOC signage suggests 1 1/2 hours from the hut to the summit. This is the steepest section and the track becomes a narrow walking track. After a few micro-breaks we reached the summit. The views were spectacular and made it all worthwhile.

 
Summit sign looking back to the Kaikoura Peninsula

We set up well away from the trig. This is a popular summit and we wanted to stay out of the way of other users. 

Not long after we arrived, a helicopter set down it's passengers in the saddle between us and the next summit, Gable. The first of many visitors to "our" mountain!

One of the aims of this trip was to work VHF/UHF into Wellington and Christchurch so I had packed my dual band (Ed Fong design) J-pole. Spots sent and calling CQ but no one could hear me... There must be something wrong, we could see Banks Peninsula! I changed to my usual Signal Stick 1/4 wave whip with counterpoise and bingo, worked a number of CHC stations on 2m. Switching to 70cm, signals were even better so we tried Fusion (C4FM) and this too was successful. No Wellington stations worked despite an "advertising call" via the Belmont repeater.
I then went and worked HF; Australia, USA, Japan and New Zealand SOTA and WWFF Chasers aplenty.

A last round of calls on 2m to see if we could get to Wellington and I am answered by Mark ZL3AB from his deck in Hanmer Springs! Massive surprise but after a couple of repeats, we managed a solid contact. Must have been some knife-edge refraction off a ridge somewhere or maybe sporadic E. Amazing.
By this stage there was a steady stream of visitors arriving at the summit so we had lunch and packed up the HF gear to declutter the view for them. Of course they all decided to leave then! 

We headed down, stopping at the hut to replenish our water bottles. Temperatures around 31 C seen on our Garmin sensors at various places along the track... It's just as relentless going down, especially on dodgy knees. 2 1/2 hours later we were pleased to arrive back at the car. Home for a well deserved shower and out to (early) dinner with Francie and Julie at Donegal House.
I was asleep on the couch by 8pm, a big day!

Permission: Not required, Ka Whata Tu o Rakihouia Conservation Park ZLFF-0082/POTA ZL-0141
Trig: Yes
Time: 3 1/4 hours ascent (8.5km/1411m vert), 2 1/2 hour descent.
Repeaters: All Canterbury and Belmont (WLG)

Kaitoa ZL3/CB-767

New Years Day 2023 found us camping at Peketa, just South of Kaikoura. 
Most of the SOTA summits around the area are on private land apart from Mt Fyffe ZL3/CB-425. I had already arranged to activate it with Dave later in the week so, after a bit of research and a phone call, settled on Kaitoa ZL3/CB-767. It's a sugarloaf just North of the township, up the Puhi Puhi River Valley, near Hapuku. The farmer was happy for me to have access - for his contact info, email me.
New Years Day dawned fine and I was soon at the start point, parked up by the woolshed. Seeing signs of life as I walked past the house, I stopped in and met Rob. He gave me a couple of tips on the best routes up and down.
It's a straightforward walk up well maintained farm tracks to the summit. Apart from a short section of native bush, you are in open paddocks all the way.

View from the summit back towards Kaikoura

You pass a substantial comms/internet installation on the way but I had no noticeable interference from it's equipment or solar regulators.


Keen on VHF contacts to Christchurch and with fairly benign (albeit cool) weather, I set up right at the top, bungeeing my pole to a convenient fence post.
EFHW and Coaxial 2m dipole on mast. 2 element Arrow yagi against trig

 
I had also taken my 3 element 2m Arrow yagi (uses a walking pole as the boom) but when assembling it, found the bottom element mount missing... Oh well, try it as a 2 element! As it turned out, it was a couple of S points better to Rick ZL3RIK on Mt Pearce than the dipole and I worked Roger ZL3RC at home in West Melton with solid signals (horizontally polarised). There was a slim chance of a contact with Brendon ZL1ALF on his summit (ZL1/WL-059 McKerrow) in Wellington. We tried a few calls each but nothing heard either way.

HF was in good shape and I had a ball working other portable operators around New Zealand and Australia. USA and Japan stations were also logged but my focus today was on Summit-to-summit (S2S) contacts, each side of the 1pm UTC rollover. Thus, I spent much more time on 40m SSB than is normal for me. The strategy paid off with 60 contacts, 29 of them S2S.

The walk down was uneventful and again, had a chat to the farmer as I went past the house.
A really enjoyable and productive New Years activation.

Access: Private land, permission required. Contact me for details.
Trig - Yes
Time: 1 1/2 hours (New years day pace...) 4.8km/676m vertical
Repeater: didn't try but 705/725 should be Ok. VHF LOS to Banks Peninsula Summits.