SOTA Activation Mt Gingera 1855m

Left home at 8am, after a 1 1/2 hour drive got to the locked gate at the Mt Ginini Car Park.

After this a basic dirt road walk...all fairly easy if a little dull. After almost an hour reached the Stockyard spur track intersection.

Glad didn't come up this way, long and steep! Another sign showed my progress

After another km got to Pryors Hut. This historic hut was built in the early 1950s as a shelter for workers at the 'Alpine Botanical Gardens', also known as 'Bendora Arboretum', an arboretum of different pines that were being trialed for suitability for growing in Canberra.

After about another km, got to the track leading up to Gingera Summit. Marked by a post with a blue rock on it ?!

From here its a steady climb up to the summit. Got to the top around 11:30am. Great views.

Got out the 2m ht and worked Andrew, VK1NAM on Bullen Range for a S2S, also 2 other VK1s.

Used the summit pole as a support for the squid pole and lashed it on

Set up the FT817 on the rock nearby, worked 12 more stations, including S2S contacts with VK3ZPF  on Pretty Sally and VK3HRA on a Grampians peak

Altitude around 1861m, bit more than the 1855m registered. Could just be my GPS.

Packed up at 1:30pm and walked back down the same way. Got back to the Ginini Car Park at 3pm.

APRS was not much good, only around the summit was good enough for a sporadic mobile phone data connection. I really need a proper 2m APRS Ht, as the Ginini digipeater, VK1RGI-1 would have been very good here.