Alto das Valiñas (SOTA EA1/LU-025): IZ6TGS

This is a video of a QSO on 20m SSB with Italian station IZ6TGS from Alto das Valiñas on the day of New Year's Eve, SOTA reference EA1/LU-025.

This summit awards 4 points plus a seasonal bonus of 3 points in winter.
Adrio was born in 1974 in San Benedetto del Tronto where he currently lives. His passion for radio began in 1990 but it was not until 2010 that he became a radio amateur.
On the right you can see his very nice QSL card featuring a military-style backpack transceiver.

EA1AQ from Formigueiros

This is another video of a QSO from the summit of Formigueiros (1639m). In this case it was a QSO with EA1AQ, who was operating from his caravan, some 40km away from the city of A Coruña.

I also tried a QSO with Ernesto (EA1LQ). I could hear him OK, buy he could not hear me at all, probably because, being in the city, he had a higher noise level.

Trying my new SOTA patches

I have been trying my new SOTA patches together with my second operator Adi. The picture was taken by Anca (YO8SOY). We are looking forward to using them on the field. That may have to wait until next weekend though, when I am fully recovered from a cold I caught this week.

Some pictures of the FT-857 manpack

These are some of the pictures of the light HF manpack transceiver based on the Yaesu FT-857 that I took today because several people asked me to through the FT857 Yahoo group and directly through my blog. On the first picture you can see the details of the antenna mounts for HF and VHF-UHF made out of aluminum plate. You can also see the SG-211 automatic antenna tuner attached by straps. Finally, the homebrew NiMH battery I made out of 11 4000mAh rechargeable batteries that I bought at a well known German supermarket chain.
As you can see on the second picture, the total weight of the radio is 4350g. That is a great improvement over the ft-897 manpack, which weighs 8.5kg or so. The weight improvement comes from a lighter transceiver (almost 2kg lighter), lighter tuner and using just one battery instead of the two that the FT-897 can hold internally.

Embroidered SOTA patches

I have just received our custom embroidered SOTA patches. They are first quality patches, 3" x 3", with 100% of the surface embroidered in 4 colours, heat sealed iron-on backing and stitched border.
The truth is that the patches have exceeded my expectations. They look very nice, don't they? Today I have sent the first ones to colleages in EA.
I hope they like them and soon we will be able to see them on their SOTA pictures and videos. I am looking forward to putting them on my winter jackets too.
There is also a special version with the border stitched in yellow.
The one with the red border are the most faithful to the SOTA logo, but so far the ones with yellow border are being very popular.
Perhaps it is because the red and yellow combination ressembles the Spanish flag, but I guess it depends more on the colour of the jacket you are planning to put them on.