SOTA Activation Mt Clear VK1/AC-014

After reading an article by Canberra Bushwalking blogger John Evans on a cross country route to Mt Clear, Andrew VK1NAM invited myself and Al VK1RX to follow it and do a joint SOTA activation. John's route shortens a 32 Km road bash into a 17 Km walk.

Met up with Andrew and Al at Al's place in Gordon, he drove us down the Boboyan Road to the turn off to Mt Clear Campground and the car park for the walk.

Al VK1RX and Andrew VK1NAM

A rare shot of myself :) with Al taken by Andrew.

Sign at the start of the walk. The road is the Naas Valley Fire Trail

A short distance along the road was a walks register. Most entries for walkers heading to Horse Gully Hut.

After 1.6 Km left the road to the right, crossing some grassy plains

Fairly easy walking across the grass, following the odd Kangaroo track. Had a bit of a detour around a small swamp, full of croaking frogs.

Followed a creek for a while, then came to an open plain with Chalkers Chimney, the remains of an old building

Close up of Chalkers Chimney with Mt Clear behind

The grassy plains ended and started climbing and scrub bashing our way up to the Mt Clear Fire Trail. Steep but not too bad. Reached the road about 10:45 am, and about 1.4 Km from the summit.

Reached the summit at 11:00 am. Set up my dipoles on a stump near the trig.

Radio shack on a log

Andrew set up on another nearby stump, Al set up a 2m station on a rock.

Andrew's SOTA flag flying

Got on air around 11:30am. Andew on 40m, Al on 2m and myself on 12m to avoid interference. First call worked S2S with Andrew, VK1DA/2 on Spring Hill, VK2/ST-036.

Unfortunately that was about it for 12m... Could hear DX signals from Japan and USA but no luck with my calls. I heard a W7 station working Peter, VK3ZPF but could not hear Peter, too close for 12m...

After a while Andrew gave me a go on 40m, worked some VK2s and VK3s, including S2S with VK3PF on VK3/VT-060, VK3YY on VK3/VT-040 and VK3ZPF on VK3/VU-009. Andrew went to 20m, made a contact with Mike, VK6MB who worked all of us.

Al tried a 10m dipole but no luck, and only 1 contact on 2m, again with Andrew VK1DA/2 on Spring Hill.
I heard Allen, VK3HRA on VK3/VT-011 come up on 40m, we all worked him, packed up and headed back down.

Followed roughly the same way back down. A view up the Naas Valley mid way down the mountain.

Got back to the car park about 4pm.

Track log of the walk. 8.5 Km each way with a 500m climb from 1100m to 1600m