Østfold County has only two SOTA summits.
LA/OF-001 has been valid since May 1 2008, and LA/OF-002 since April 1 2014.
The number of activations has been low; LA/OF-002 has only been activated once,
and LA/OF-001 only four times. A reason for this could be geography. Østfold is
a relatively flat area. Thus, the small number of summits likely implies that
SOTA activations are little attractive for Østfold HAMs. Moreover, activators
in Akershus likely prefer to drive north to summits giving more SOTA points per
activation.
Enough said about that. I drove south to
Linnekleppen earlier today. It was my first visit to the summit. It’s an easy
summit to activate. From the parking lot at N 59 20.493, E 011 34.546, it is a
3.5 km walk to the summit. It’s said that the trail is marked with blue signs.
However, they need to be refreshed. Nevertheless, it’s very easy to follow the
trail.
At the summit there are several picnic
tables and easy to erect an antenna. I guess it can be quite crowded in
weekends, but on an early Tuesday afternoon, I was almost alone.
As usual, I used my FT-817ND and a linked
dipole.
The HF conditions were fair with some QSB.
I struggled with SSB, but I managed to have four QSOs in the log. I then
started to work CW, and 17 stations were worked. Among them three S2S. All QSOs
were on 20 meter. I did also try some calls on 2 meter, as usual with no luck.
DXCCS: DL, EA, F, G, HB9, I, LZ, OE, ON,
SP, SV, UA
PS If you have time, there are around 25
geocaches you can pick up.
