Triple 2x1 Activation in Karwendel: OEFF-0043, DLFF-0173 and DL/KW-038

Motivation

One evening I was sitting on the couch and studying the WWFF map while looking for an opportunity to activate an OEFF area which borders with Germany. This would have given me a 5 points DXCC bonus for the WWFF Activator Points Award, and this additionally to the QSO points. Since border crossings to Austria are still closed for private visits and, probably, still will be closed for a while, the only opportunity remaining to activate an OEFF is in a cross-border or border nature reserve. And I found a suitable one not far from my QTH - Nature Park Karwendel which is a very quiet and picturesque mountain range I like very much. So, a WWFF activity there can perfectly be combined with a SOTA activation. 

Preparation

My choice fell on Demeljoch (1924m), a prominent mountain at the border between Bavaria, Germany and Tyrol, Austria. The summit can be reached from the south by a hiking trail starting near the Sylvensteinsee. A quick check revealed that parking spots in the Fall village haven't been closed. The Demeljoch has a boundary marker on the top, (politically) dividing the nature park and the summit into Austrian OEFF-0043 and German DLFF-0173 parts. The mountain used to have two SOTA references, but after the elimination of border summits appearing in more than one association only German reference number DL/KW-038 has remained.

It made the planed triple activation a bit complicated, since I will have needed to activate a German summit (i.e. listed by German Association) from the Austrian territory operating under the CEPT licence.  

I was wondering if it could be possible to make a triple activation in one day, 2x WWFF and 1x SOTA. What is allowed by the SOTA and WWFF General Rules?

The 3.7.1 Criteria for a valid Expedition from the SOTA General Rules (Version 1.20) state: 

...

4. The Operating Position must be within the Activation Zone. The operating position must lie  within  a  closed  contour  line  at  the  permitted  maximum  Vertical  Distance  below  the summit. (Typically  the  contour  line  is  25  metres  below  peak  height  of  the  summit). The Operating Position is taken to be the position of the operator. 

 ...

 13. A summit that falls exactly on the border between two or more Associations may only be listed by one Association. The summit may only be claimed by the Association that has the largest area of the Activation Zone within its borders. A valid Activation, however, may take from anywhere in the Activation Zone including the part of the Activation Zone not covered by the Association which lists the summit. Unless the licensing regulations decree otherwise, the position of the Activator is deemed to be the Operating Position.  

...

That means, it's within the SOTA General Rules to activate a summit listed by the German Association from Austria as long as the Operating Position lies within the Activation Zone. Or in other words, I can activate the Demeljoch, DL/KW-038 operating from Austria as OE/DD1LD/P, while simultaneously activating OEFF-0043. And of course, I can activate the Demeljoch, DL/KW-038 from Germany, while simultaneously activating DLFF-0173 as DD1LD/P. Since OEFF-0043 and DLFF-0173 don't overlap, but they are adjacent to each other, both can be activated by one radio expedition in one day, as long as it's compliant with 4.4 Working within boundaries of the reference from the  WWFF General Rules (Version 5.4).

...
While activating a WWFF reference area, all equipment (including antenna/s, transceiver/s,  power  supply/ies,  etc)  must  be  within  the  boundaries  of  the relevant WWFF reference area. 
... 

I spent some more time to study the WWFF General Rules (Version 5.4) and found some more pieces that are relevant to my intention.  
....
3.5  References bordering another reference area 
Activators are only permitted to activate one reference area at a time.  There are some instances where a WWFF reference area borders another.

....

That means, it's not allowed to activate two WWFF references simultaneously at the same time, but each after the other is allowed without time restrictions.
...
3.14  Time between activations
There  is  no  restriction  with  regards  to  time  between  one  activation  and  a subsequent activation.
...

Just to summarize again what I have learned so far -  if there are two neighboring WWFF areas sharing the same SOTA reference, all three of them can potentially be activated by a single radio expedition (but not simultaneously), as long as the SOTA activation is occurring within the Activation Zone and the WWFF activation is occurring within the defined and relevant nature protection area. Thus, the Operating Position must be changed at least once, from one WWFF area to the other within the summit Activation Zone.

Strategy and Plan
The plan was to start as OE/DD1LD/P and activate DL/KW-038 and OEFF-0043 by 44 QSOs. Then I was going to change my operating position and move all the equipment to the German side and continue activating DL/KW-038 as DD1LD/P while simultaneously collecting as much QSO as possible for DLFF-0173. 

In order to avoid a confusion among SOTA chasers I put two SOTA alerts for the Demeljoch, DL/KW-038 - one for OE/DD1LD at 8:00 UTC with a short comment "operating from OE side" and one for DD1LD/P at 10:00 UTC.  I also announced two WWFF activations in the agenda - one for OEFF-0043 at 8:00 UTC and DLFF-0173 at 10:00 UTC.

Activation
The alarm clock woke me up at 6:00 am. I was just too tired last days to get up straight away and stayed in bed a little longer. I left my home just before 7:00 am and arrived in the Fall village (773m) at ~8:00 am, and 15 minutes later I was riding my mountain bike along the Dürrach river. I have to admit,  I lost some time looking for the entry point of the south trail which is by the way signposted, since I got irritated by the number of bridges I had to cross before the trailhead. I hid my bike in the trees at the trailhead (900m) and hiked to the Demeljoch (1924m) from here within 2 hours. The trail (SAC T2) is well marked and easy to follow: Bächental - Demel Niederleger - Demel Hochleger - Demeljoch. I just had to cross a couple of snow spots close to the mountain top. As usual I made an entry in the summit book upon arrival, at 10:45 or 8:45 UTC. 

Just arrived at the summit and signed in the book. 
The previous entry says "It's my kind of exit restriction!"

I enjoyed the beautiful view for a while, had a quick breakfast and started to set up my station just behind the border line to be fully based in OEFF. The sky was almost cloudless and warm sunshine fell on my nature shack at a lofty height. After a couple of CQ DE OE/DD1LD/P I got spotted by both SOTA- and WWFFwatches and the "party" got started. As anticipated, the SOTA spot (a German summit activated from Austria) confused some chasers at the beginning though. However, it got sorted out quickly and I had a smooth run.

 

Operating from Austria as OE/DD1LD/P. Ö on the marker post means Österreich 7 Austria.

The first QSO was logged at 9:10 UTC and had a pretty nice pile-up for the first half an hour. The number of QSOs in 10 minutes intervals is shown below:

1st 10min - 17, 40m
2nd 10min - 12, 40m
3rd 10min - 12 , 40m
4th 10min - 4, 40m  / 44 QSO achieved within 35 minutes of operating time
5th 10min - 7, 40m
6th 10min - 7, 40m
7th 10min - 7, 30m
8th 10min - 3, 30m, all QSO made within first 5min of the 10min slot

I got 69 QSO in 80 minutes of operating time. My CQ call on 30m remained unanswered for more than 5min. I should have stopped here, however, I didn't and decided to move back to 40m hoping to have another nice short run there and make a leap towards 88 QSO and two WWFF activator points. However, it didn't work out, I logged only 2 QSO on 40 within another 10 min.  I finished with 71 QSO made in 1.5 hours of operating time. I knew that I would have a hard time operating from DLFF and collecting every QSO, since a lot of SOTA chasers already just worked DL/KW-038. For the sake of time I decided to QRT from OEFF.

I needed 15min to take a short break and move my station just beyond the border line. CQ DE DD1LD/P was quickly picked-up by RBN and answered by faithful SOTA and WWFF chasers. As expected, the QSO rate dropped:

1st 10min - 11, 40m
2st 10min - 6, 40m
3rd 10min - 6, 30m
4th 10min - 6, 20m
5th 10min - 4, 20m, change to 40m
6th 10min - 4, 40m
7th 10min - 8, 40m / 44 QSO achieved after one hour of operating time
8th 10min - 2, 20m
9th 10min - 0, short break
10th 10min - 5, 30m

I got 52 QSO in 90 minutes of operating time. It was rather a tedious undertaking, but I was satisfied with the result for a working weekday, and the mission was complete.

 

 Operating as DD1LD/P. D on the marker post means Deutschland / Germany.

I QRTed, took a couple of pictures, stowed everything away, and had a short run on 2m FM while enjoying my last few minutes of being on the summit top. I easy got 4 QSO in FM with my 5W handheld, and this was enough to claim SOTA points. And this underlined the difference between two programs and the associated activation challenges - 44 QSO for WWFF versus 4 QSO for SOTA are required for activation and validation.

The descent was quick and smooth, the nicest thing was to ride my bike down. Two hours later I was in my car driving home to join the family dinner at 6:00 pm. I spent a beautiful day in absolute solitude and in a tremendous landscape. There were no walkers anywhere and I didn't meet anyone all day!

The activity resulted in 124 CW QSO in 3 hours of operating time plus 4 FM QSO. 2x unique WWFF and 1x unique SOTA were successfully "checked-in". What I would have done differently? I probably should have run on 40m as OE/DD1LD/P for as long as needed to get 44 QSO and just qualify the activation of OEFF-0043. Then I should have switched to operating as DD1LD/P to validate the DLFF-0173 activation by another 44 QSO on all bands.  This would have halved the operating time, for sure. 

Short summary and statistics for OE/ and DD1LD/P:

• Date: April 23rd, 2020
• Equipment: high alpine QRP + FM handheld
• Operating time: ~3 hours
• DXCC worked: t.b.d.
• Top countries worked: t.b.d.
• Continents worked: 2
• DX: North America

• SOTA summits: 1x unique (not activated by myself before)
• SOTA reference: DL/KW-038
• SOTA-valid QSO: 128
• SOTA activator points: 8
• S2S: 1

• WWFF areas: 2x unique (not activated by myself before)
• WWFF reference: OEFF-0043 and DLFF-0173
• WWFF-valid QSO: 127 (71 for OEFF + 56 for DLFF)
• Unique callsigns: t.b.d.
• WWFF activator points: 1 + 1 + 5 DXCC bonus
• P2P: 1

• Altitude difference made: 1150m  
• Walked distance: 11 km 
• Cycled distance: 15 km
• Overall distance: 26 km
• Overall activity length: ~9 hours
• GPS track: available HERE (t.b.d.) 

View from the Demeljoch, DL/KW-038 to the south upon leaving.  
The Demel Hochleger is in the left bottom corner.

It was a beautiful day in absolute solitude and in a tremendous landscape.

I'm planning my next tour in Karwendel and targeting a 2x2 activation - 2x WWFF, 2x SOTA and at least 88 QSOs in the shortest possible operating time.  Stay tuned!

Mni tnx to all chasers fer QSO!

73 es 44 de Dzianis, DD1LD/P