SOTA Activation VK1/AC-039 855m

Set off to activate SOTA summit VK1/AC-039, an unnamed peak just to the West of Canberra in Uriarra Pine Forest. Drove down Uriarra Rd, Brindabella Rd, and turned off at a junction onto Bullock Paddock Rd.

The road initially runs through pine forest

The a little later into land cleared by the 2003 Canberra Bushfire.

I somehow in the maze of unmarked forestry roads managed to miss a turnoff to Yellow Rabbit Rd, which would have taken me up the Northern side of VK1/AC-039. Instead followed a link road around the South of the summit. As behind time decided to drive as close as possible and walk directly up the spur at the Southern end of the summit, around 800m from the posted coordinates.

This turned out to be an old forestry road, long closed off by logs to stop access. No problem on foot...

Got to the top, found a still used road going around the summit, and another heading straight up it, with access blocking logs.

After some more log hopping/weaving got to the summit, worked 5 stations on the 2m hand held, signals were marginal with the tree cover. Set up the squid pole and radio on a log.

Strung the legs of the 40m dipole out to a couple of trees up and down the disused road.
View South.

View North

Signals on 40m were good, 2 19 more contacts including S2S contacts with VK3BYD and VK3ZPF.

Packed up around 11:30am and headed home. At home I looked up Andrew VK1NAM's Google Earth points on this summit, seems I missed a clearing in the trees just North of where I operated from, which explained why he did better than me on 2m...Next time I'll know...