SOTA - Go tell it on the mountains

Not very long ago I noticed, that the german DM branch of the SOTA project has 2 summits very near of where I live. These exist for quite some time, but I was not paying attention to SOTA at all for many years - I was not even aware, it existed, to be honest. Last weekend, me and my girlfriend where trying to get outside and I could convince her to visit one of the summits. I was not going to activate it, but instead look, if there was a decent place to try an activation from. I have visited this summit before (DM/NW-003) and it has a beautiful look over the Rhine area.

Tiny panorama view from the DM/NW-003 summit

On the top of the so called Ölberg, there is a small restaurant and on the top of that, the antenna of DB0SG, a local 70cm repeater. Usually from there I try to work DB0FT, a 2m repeater about 120km south of the Ölberg. I always think of it as a challenge, to turn down the transmit power as low as possible and still get reasonable reports. Sadly, I reached the repeater very well with 50mW and my NA-701 whip using the Kenwood TH-F7, but my CQ calls were left unanswered. ... Still remaining: A bunch of beautiful pictures that we took and that panorama picture.

Tiny panorama view from the DM/NW-001 summit

In the summer, I will revisit and activate that summit as well as DM/NW-001 on 2m as my start in the SOTA program. I am looking forward to that!

73 de DO5GBN