Murugain SOTA EA2/SS-030 VHF S2S Day

Today was a nice day for "sotting" at the Basque Country. Marcial was again riding the world, and in these days I am trying to achieve my first level Basajaun certificate. (I'll publish more about the new Basque Country Summits on the Air new award). I need already two more summits from Gipuzkoa, +-100 km far from Bilbao. So I chose a summit not too high and near the border between Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa  (Here you can see the trip)

So, I set up my motorcycle as usual, carrying the light rig, that is: FT-817ND, LiFePO4 12v 8Ah, 10 mtrs wire, 3,5 fishing pole and Fusch kit QRP antenna tunner. It was one hour trip going not too fast, as there were a lot of people cycling on this roads at weekends.

Udalatx from Murugain

After a coffe and some advise from people of Aretxabaleta, I managed to find the route and a couple of km ahead, I started walking up to Murugain EA2/SS-030. As usual the mountains looked amazing, in this I had at sight Udalatx, with its impressive stone walls (perhaps some day I'll try to hike it up,mmm...)
Even better, despite the weather predictions, the sun was heating pretty well, with no trace of clouds, and only a light wind at the summit. 

In these optimal condx, just after arrival, I quickly set up the FT-817 and its rubber antenna to find the 144 mhz full of avid activators, from 145.475 up to 145.575mhz

I finally managed to contact with 8 of them across 4 EA2 territories:

• Iratxe EA2DNO & Alberto EA2DCA at Montejurra EA2/NV-090
• Antonio EC2AG at Altun EA2/BI-026
• Juan Carlos EA2EEB at Larrunarri EA2/SS-002
• Alberto EA2DYS and Roberto EA2DXY at EA2/NV-015
• Iñigo EA2CQ at Orisol EA2/VI-014 (he was with Cruz EA2EBX but I couldn't contact him)
• Salvador EA2OX at Eretza EA2/BI-016

I don't know if there were more people up over there, but it was definitely the best 144 mhz day I've enjoyed untill today.

Then I use the iron cross on the summit to tie the "short" 10 m wire to make some HF CW. A fast passing thru by 10 and 18 mhz, as my antenna was not very well fitted, gave me 20-25 QSO's more, including several old known ones as Tonnie PA9CW (nice to meet you again!) Roy G4SSH (twice) and the "always-in-the-front-line" Rick N4EX.

In the meanwhile, I met Carlos EB2CZT from Legutio, who was enjoying the beautiful day with his wife, and we had the chance of chatting about... radio, of course!

73 de Mikel EA2CW

Euskal Herriko Mendiak
http://www.euskalmendiak.eu