SOTA Activation Mt Gibraltar VK2/IL-001

Had a day off work, "Family and Community Day" holiday in Canberra, so thought I'd take a break from the local peaks and travel a bit further. Mt Gibraltar and Mt Alexandra are close by each other and close to major towns, Bowral and Mittagong, so easy to access.

Drove up the Hume Highway, stopping at Marulan briefly for a coffee, turning off into Bowral. Drove along the main street, then up Oxley Drive to Mt Gibraltar. Needed to walk the last 25m into the activation zone, as per SOTA rules, so turned off Oxley drive mid way up down a road to Bowral Lookout picnic area.

Parked the car in the picnic area car park.

Measured the altitude here with the GPS at 820m. The summit is at 865m so 45m down, and outside the activation zone. Walked up the road to the summit, a cluster of TV/Radio masts. There was a trig point here, a very odd one on a brick structure with a ladder on the side...

Tempted to try operating from the top, would have been a bit cramped though...too many trees too.

Nearby was a concrete slab from the ruins of a past radio shack, and remnants of a tower. Attached the squid pole to a tree stump and used the slab for the radio bench.

Set up the dipole across the clearing where the building used to be, using trees for support.

Got on 40m. Fairly quiet, being a week day probably not many active. Worked some of the usual chasers. Found Glen VK3YY and Andrew VK1NAM/3 were running late for their activation, so tuned around on other bands. 2m was full of weird noises from the nearby radio/TV services, almost unusable. Managed a couple of contacts with local stations through a repeater. Had one station in Mittagong, not far away, but unable to hear my direct signal. Glen and Andrew came up from VK3/VN-001 for a S2S. Total 15 contacts. Packed up and returned to the car, drove down to Mittagong for lunch.

Track log of walk.