Attempted SOTA Activation The Dutchman's Stern VK5/NE-028

After staying overnight at Melrose following my Mt Remarkable walk headed for Quorn and an attempt on The Dutchman's Stern. Arrived at the track car park late morning.

The nearby sign showed the park walking tracks. There was a loop walk up to The Dutchmans Stern

Walked to point 2 on this map and decided to head up to The Dutchmans Stern. Was to learn later from Paul VK5PAS I should have continued South on the loop instead

The way I went took me up through a series of switchbacks to a lookout called The Dutchman's Stern, Point 3 on the walk map. Good views West.

Checked the SOTA waypoint on the GPS, it was over 4 Km away! As getting late in the day had lunch and set up the dipole. I used the Checkpoint 3 sign to support the squid pole.

Got on 40m, worked Paul VK5PAS on Mt Greenly, VK5/SW-033. He agreed had taken the loop track the wrong way, as had got to the summit in about the same time I got to here. I couldn't really work anyone as an activator, so did some testing of my 20m dipole, which had not worked anyone yet. QSYed off 40m with Andrew, VK2UH to 20m, signals were about the same on both bands, fair bit of QSB. After worked Andrew worked a station mobile in Esperence VK6 and a VK4 in Brisbane, so seemed to work ok.

Headed down again, ended up racing back to the car to avoid an approaching rain cloud.