It has been busy times... There was just not much time for ham radio.
On the coming Sunday, June 20th, was the last chance to contribute to the 12th World Castles Weekend. The weather was nice for a family bike tour. The plan was to ride to the Ismaning Palace, where I could do a short activation while the rest of the family could relax in the park. The Ismaning Palace, WCA DL-05238, COTA OBB-104 was not activated yet, so that I was looking forward to having a nice pile-up and I was hoping to gather at least 100 GoGreen points.
Everything just gets slower with children. We started and arrived later than I wanted. Our 4 ½ year old Kirian made the 16 km long route very easy and without any complaints. It must have been a lot of fun for him. Our 2 year old Norwin enjoyed half of the ride from the bike rack and slept the other half. He was the lucky one 😁.
I easily found a nice operating spot in the shade close to the Ismaning Palace Pavilion. I didn't want to set up a pole in the middle of the park and threw the antenna over a 12 meter high tree branch. I made myself comfortable under the tree in front of the Ismaning Palace Pavilion. Everything worked quickly and without any problems, so that 10 minutes later I was already on the air, at 12:30 PM, whereas the family was looking for a delicious meal for lunch.
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| My operating spot in front of the Ismaning Palace Pavilion. |
The first 20m run was short and pretty sobering. After only 11 QSOs, I had to switch to 30m, and then to 40m. I only logged 28 QSOs as the family came back with an Italian pizza and French fries. Some feedback in the chat at TNXQSO.com indicated bad propagation conditions with strong QSB, QRN and QRM. OK, the propagation was poor, however where were all the COTA takers 😕? Frequent spotting didn't help much either.
"Okay, take a break, take a deep breath, enjoy lunch in the fresh air! And then? Scrub all QSOs on all bands and in all operating modes just to gather the 50 QSOs you need", I corrected my initial plan (of 100 GoGreen points) while I was finishing the last slice of the delicious Italian pizza. So I did. The fries and sweets were eaten, the family's patience was becoming increasingly strained. With a lot of effort and an one hour more I managed to log the 52nd QSO. "QRZ? Any more?". Since only the silence came back, I QRTed with mixed feelings. On the one hand I managed to activate a new one, on the other hand I was not pleased with such a small number of COTA chasers in my log. I'll admit that I was glad it was over. What an arduous undertaking?!
We quickly packed everything together, paid a short visit to the Pavilion and relaxed cycling home. The real hero of the day was our Kirian. That day he covered 32 km with his little children's bike and even ran a race with a bigger boy who happened to be heading in the same direction. The ambition seized him so that we got home 20 minutes earlier than planned. I was wondering where did he get all this energy from? Bravo!
- Date: June 20th, 2021
- Equipment: QRP (5W) + EFHW
- Operating time: ~2 hours
- Participation time: < 3 hours
- Valid QSOs: 52
- Unique callsigns: 45
- DXCC worked: 19
- WCA reference: DL-05238
- COTA reference: OBB-104
- GoGreen: yes
- Cycled distance: ~32 km
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