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A Satellite SOTA activation

August 3, 2019 / zs2dh

SOTA has been very scarce in my life of late! Having just started to play with Satellites (HF is a lot of hard work with the current sun spots!) I thought it might be nice to one day do a Satellite SOTA activation.

One day…

An early start sun rise below the freeway bridge!

My mate Glen, ZS2GV said he was going to one of his high-sites in the Hogsback area, so I bummed a lift!

This was great – it got me to and from the Hogsback area (300 odd Km from my QTH each way) and it saved the world from hearing more karaoke from Glen driving alone in his saltmine bakkie.

And so one day became today – Tuesday 30 July 2019. An early start, a return after sunset, but wow, what a day!

After a stop at Nanaga farm stall for the mandatory pies, we made our way to Hogsback going past Grahamstown and then through Fort Beaufort and Alice and finally up the magestic pass into Hogsback village.

Straight through the village and onto the road to Sweat Grass, the farm on which the access road to Elandsberg is located.

Elandsberg access track

A 4×4 track (see left) leads through some farm gates and the zig-zas up to the top of the ridge. After that, you pretty much on your own.

The view from the top of Elandsberg ZS/EL-012 is, well, Hogsback, so by its very definition, awesome. The wind was howling, but the plan was to activate on satellite, so the HF dipole was NOT put up.

I had looked on gPredict and made a “cheat-sheet” of all the workable passes over Elandsberg for the day and simply had to keep and eye on the time and track the satellites!

We were a little late getting away in the morning, but we got up top about 11 am and so I had three passes that could do the trick. The first two passes went without me hearing a thing – well other than wind and noise.

Giakas kop from Elandsberg

Ok, I’ll admit – I was starting to worry about possibly not activating. Remember to activate a SOTA summit you need a minimum of 4 QSOs and I had none, with one pass left.

AO-91 was the satellite on which I was pinning my hopes. The pass started to the North and I shifted gears (frequency) for the pass – everything! Nothing heard!

By now my radio was set to the “LOS” frequency and I was facing South. I sat down on a rock – feeling rather dejected – and randomly pointed the AMSAT yagi in the direction of the LOS coordinates (as if to tell AO-91 where it SHOULD be).

Up came the signals and I heard the world! In a very short time I managed to work ZS1LEM, ZS1OB, ZS2BK, ZS2ACP, ZS4CGR, and ZS4MG. All 5/9 through the satellite! Boy did my mood change!

It amazes me what you can do with a hand-held putting out 5W and a hand-held yagi antenna.

And so it came to pass that ZS2DH, from the top of Elandsberg, managed to get his quota of QSOs and activate the Elandsberg. A lot of firsts…

First activation of Elandsberg, my first activation of 2019 (*blush*), and my first satellite SOTA activation. Thank you GV!

The Bay West Mall National Rally 2019

July 22, 2019 / zs2dh

What used to be called the VW Rally, is now the Bay West Mall National Rally – still organised by the smart folk at the Algoa Motorsport Club.

I have done radio marshalling at the rally for a number of years now and there are posts you can read about all the trips, some mobile and some stationary. This year it took place on teh weekend of 19-20 July.

I am always impressed with the motor vehicles. A number of “classic” cars and some friendly drivers/navigators – people you might not expect were capable of the speeds and terrain this event requires.

This year I got to “ride with the boss”. I was with the Clerk of the Course. Unfortunately, though, in what I regard as a rather gutsy call, the rally was abandoned on day 2. A lot of rain and worse weather on the way, I believe it was the correct choice. Calling off a rally where many have invested a lot of time and effort – and money – is never going to be a popular choice, but it was done.

This year teams came from Zambia, Nigeria, and of course South Africa.

Below are some photos – including the display in the mall, some of the vehicles at the start of the first stage, and a video clip of a car pulling away at stage one.

The Zulu and I in the Elephant back safari state of mind!

The Great Zuurberg Trek – 2018. Awesome!

June 9, 2018 / zs2dh

One of my absolute favorite events on the PEARS/HAMNET calendar is the Great Zuurberg Trek, or GZT. Three days in the Zuurberg, camping, 4×4-ing around the place and getting to watch people cycling while I sit and watch. It was an awesome way to spend my “May 24 to May 27 2018”!

Hayterdale is a really nice get-away with facilities that let you know you are not in the bush, but you are definitely out of town. This year the event was made even more awesome as I had the Zulu in attendance!

Andre had joined me on the IronMan 2018 event earlier and I’d invited him to join in the fun and he agreed. We decided Bev (my XYL) would do all the food prep for us and we would travel in Andre’s bakkie. My trusty tent was used and the stretchers, tables, chairs, and so on were all packed.

Thursday late afternoon we set out for the weekend, arriving at the farm to find a few others already there. We picked a spot and pitched the tent! The weekend starts now!

Apart from the stunning scenery, clean air, and great friends, there is also the evening fire. It was not long before the fire was blazing, the Scotch flowing, and the laughter ringing out – probably disturbing our fellow campers 🙂

Missing from the list of the usual suspects were Colin and Jimmy – ZS2CRS and ZS2JIM. Them buggers were off hiking the Fish River Canyon! I kept the tradition of mussels on Salti-crax and toasted sarmies on the fire, but as Tony pointed out – a poor substitute. Chris, ZS2AAW was also missed.

The Dam at Slagboom – from the other side.

Friday morning, the Zulu and I worked a point on the Slagboom road where we operated from handhelds into the Viewlands repeater. After the last cyclist had passed we made our way to the Police training camp and had a look around before heading back to the camp site to relax for the rest of the day.

Samatran Premium Coffee sponsor coffee for the cyclists and for the radio hams and let me tell you, it is damn fine coffee! Andre and I made our way to the hotel for lunch and to grab a cup-a-heaven. Lunch was (as always) provided by the organizers and generous and delicious. Thank you!

Jou lekker ding!

The evening braai was as loud as the previous evening, but Eric and Isolda told us about the DJ who had “entertained” them – “Jou Lekka Ding” soon became a familiar chirp – it’s actually amazing how often it could be relevant to what you were saying! “Is that meat done? – Jou lekker ding!”, or, “You want another dop? – Jou lekker ding!”

Saturday we caught a lift with Eric and Isolda to their water point which is where the Zulu and I first set eyes on “jou lekker ding”. It was early in the morning and there he was singing Karaoke!

I am pretty sure I have never seen someone break a pedal on one of these events prior to this one. The leaders came flying passed us at the water point and then returned – with a broken pedal! Watching them as the next few cyclists came past them was heartbreaking, but when someone stops and offers to help it can restore your faith in humanity!

Once the last riders were through, we saddled up for our point and Eric gave us a lift to our point on the way to their second point. Andre and I worked a point in the Elephant Sanctuary – but without seeing any Elephant (probably a good thing since we were simply dropped off with our chairs and radios!) A stunning morning by all accounts, spent “encouraging” cyclists from the comfort of our chairs.

The last thing one would expect 🙂

Not long after we arrived, we found a nice spot in the shade and were waiting for the first cyclists to arrive, when out of the bush came a sight so unexpected, we could only chant “Jou lekker ding!”. I was being a perfect gentleman, while the Zulu turned on the charm to find out what he could – her husband was cycling, so we had to make a note of the team number and give him a “bigger than normal” shout. Poor men are probably still wondering who we are!

As usual, after we finished we stopped by the hotel to grab our lunch and some of that coffee! When it was time to leave, on our way back to the car, we saw the DJ at the medic station – on a drip! I must apologize, but I had to ask the medic why he felt the need to put the DJ onto a drip – when he had been a drip all day!

That night around the fire the jokes were flying! Jou lekker ding -this, Jou lekker ding -that!

GZT 2018 – the new part of the track

Sunday the ZULU and I headed off in different directions – both on foot from the camp site. Andre went to the Tank Bottom site (as for the Herald Mountain Bike Race), while I went off on a new route in search of a spot behind the koppie. I had a great walk – even almost bumping into a female Nyala on the path!

On my way back (it was an early finish here as this was about 5Km into the route), I did some signal checks from the valley behind the farm and managed to make it into the XBand repeater rather well.

I moved over to the crossings where ZS2RL and his good lady were stationed, before moving back to the farm gate where I would one again team up with the Zulu, this time to help cyclists onto the last stage of the race – a 9Km uphill slog to the hotel!

This was where we saw the DJ once again – this time a little more subdued and sitting on a chair. I once again had to apologize – this time that I had not recognized him without his drip! LOL.

The last cyclist through saw us start to pack up and mid afternoon we were back at home, tired, dirty, but happy!

As usual, there is a random bunch of photos below – enjoy.

Thanks to those who made the effort to have an awesome weekend – and to Tony for another well planned event. Tony – Jou Lekker Ding!

Don’t laugh…it works!

Andre and I found this trap up near Tank Top.

A tree along the way

The leaders coming through at high speed!

Should I be calling ZS2DH Mobile division 2?

I could live here!

Running a Hamnet exercise

May 8, 2018 / zs2dh

I have a gift – or a curse, I’m not sure. As a software engineer, it is my job to simplify tasks and provide efficient solutions to what I like to call “real world problems”. I am not a technical person and many can’t understand this. Let me explain.

Whether it is electricity, gas, cars, or anything along those lines, I tend to battle a lot more than people would expect. Until I explain that I live in a world where anything is possible – if it does not already exist, I make it. So when I ask if a penlight battery can power an HF rig for a 24 hour field station people just laugh. In my mind I can’t understand why they simply don’t just make a penlight battery with that capability – I would if you could code it!

So you can’t code batteries and other “real world problems” but several decades of “inventive engineering” can make you expect things 🙂

Ok, so what does this have to do with a national Hamnet exercise? Well I wrote a small web application on one of our test servers at the salt mine and with that managed to keep 11 teams around the country busy sending messages on HF and VHF for a full 24 hours period. The script is available to anyone who would like to run a similar event – just yell and I’ll help where I can.

Basically it involved generating a bunch of messages (I needed about 357, but shortened it to 342 final tally). The desired message rate was “2-3 message per hour, with about the same coming in“. So I kept the teams in order for outbound messages, but randomised the message destination team so there was no pattern to make it boring. I then sent a message off every 4 minutes. This meant a team would get an out bound message every 44 minutes and this seemes to have done the trick.

Generating 350 messages also sounds like a hugh task – but being fundamentally lazy I found an easy way – a sort of “mail merge” so you can make a missing persons report where the detail such as race, gender, age, height, weight, and when/where they went missing is all pulled in from random text files. Super easy to use and once again – available for free to anyone who would like to use it.

So, in short, running someting like this is not a big deal. But it was fun and inspiring – hearing the people, 23 and a half hours into the event asking if we could carry on since they were still having fun – priceless! Radio hams are all nice friendly people and the underlying courtesy and professionalism came shining through.

Some of the challenges included battery power, lighting, and heating! While the Limpopo was mild, the Free State was freezing! I would like to be a part of something like this again in the future and wonder if I could stand the cold like they did?

The basic plan

Teams were tasked with setting up a VHF team with internet access (to get messages to send and to log the messages received) and a HF team with good comms to relay messages. This meant that each message followed at least a VHF->HF->VHF path but a large number needed to be relayed so even more hands were involved. A great deal of message sending and good practice.

Hammies Boot Camp – Bisho

May 4, 2018 / zs2dh

I was privilledged to have my two sons assist me with a Hammies Boot Camp in the Bisho area of the Eastern Cape. What made this course special for me was that my old friend and Scouting collegue, Lunga Nqini had asked me to run it for his Church/Scout group. The course was planned for April 27-May 1 but ended a day earlier than anticipated.

17 eager kids awaited our arrival and one very loaded Nissan Sentra arrived early Friday morning. Things soon got underway and classes began. Really interesting questions from some of the kids.

One of my favourites: If we not allowed to use bad language on the radio, but we are allowed to play music – what if we play music with bad language? A nice short answer to a Scout/Church kid: If you have music like that you listening to the wrong kind on music.

Friday we did a LOT of theory, Saturday was a lot more fun with practical activities and Sunday was teh day for the HF tests. What a day!

I received a call to return to the saltmine on the Monday – the day the written exam was due. This meant we needed to close up a day earlier than anticipated. Sunday turned into a day full of tests for the kids – each going through their HF test and then the group finally writting the written paper at 15:30. By 17:00 Sunday we were on the way home again. Roadworks, SunSet and idiot drivers together – but we made it home safely!

A new ruling from the SARL RAE committee is that 5 QSOs are now needed for the practical test. Fortunately we had started the mamoth task of 17×5=85 QSOs Saturday afternoon! It was a long haul that I’d have to say.

Upon reflection, one thing that amazed me was that almost all of the kids were scared of the battery! I had to show them several times that you could touch the terminals – mentioning each time that you could not touch them together! Yet each one, while practicing to set up the station was overly cautious when working with the battery. At first I wanted them to relax, but I think a healthy dose of care is probably a good idea.

Another thing that jumped out at me was that the language barrier was not nearly as bad as it used to be. That said, when you get a little 9 year old Xhosa girl who cant read (or as we used to say – sound it) Electromagnetic radiation, you have to ask how many 9 year olds could anyway 🙂

A number of priceless moments stick out for me, but probably my favourite is getting a signal report as “a beautiful, loving 5/9”. A close second came from Enkosi – our top scorer – who when I asked her duting one of our QSOs whether she was having fun replied that she was having an absolute BLAST. Enthusiasm you don’t often hear on the radio – and that with perfect protocal. Sommer net lekker!

To view more pics of the course and the accommodation at the venue, look here.

Hammies Boot Camp 2018 – photos

May 4, 2018 / zs2dh

You can read all about the Hammies Boot Camp in Bisho here.

Below are photos of the course, the accommodation.

ion at the venue, and the kids themselves.

IronMan 2018

April 18, 2018 / zs2dh

The Lollipop, PE beachfront

Port Elizabeth on the Eastern shores of South Africa is home to one of the most popular Iron Man routes in the world. I’d like to think it has something to do with the friendly people, the clean beaches, and the very very smart, efficient radio hams who line the route doubling as keen spectators.

Well we do have friendly people and clean beaches – just saying 😉

April 15 marked a day a lot of people pushed themselves. Athletes who swam, cycled, ran, and overcame. There were also radio hams and other officials who put in a very long shift to make this a world class event.

Ironman 2018 field station

This year was another long-shift down on the beach front. Getting to my point at about 05:30 and standing there until the last runner is home – or 00:00 – whichever comes first. This time it was midnight.

Once again the plan was to use the mobile repeater on the roof of the Radison Blu hotel on the beach front as a cross band for UHF along the beachfront and patching it into the Slipper repeater for the stations out on the cycle route. Unlike in the past, however, this time our normal point-man in the JOC (Tony – ZR2TX) was officially a referee and going around in his black and white stripped shirt looking all official! We were so proud of him!

Jimmy, ZS2JIM took to the role as if he was made for it. Keeping a cool head and keeping the rest of us awake too. Jimmy – a fine job, well done.

This year I had the pleasure of having my XYL Bev, and our sons Graydon ZU2GH and Michael ZU2MOO assisting me. I was joined in the afternoon by the Zulu himself – Andre Potgieter ZS2ZA. Andre enjoyed it so much and stayed with us to the bitter end.

Our English Rose we called her: Natalie, the first lady NOT to make it. Graydon ran with her from our position toward the finish line. It was always going to be tight, but it was not to be! Seconds short at the end of a very long day!

Natalie may not have won the IronMan, but she won the hearts of many Port Elizabethans. Natalie we love you!

Andre is already waiting for the (half IronMan) World Championships later this year – we going to operate again as one of the waterpoints/cheer groups/radio operators. A large number of runners in the last few hours thanked us personally for our support (verbal abuse) and said that without us they would either have not finished or would have battled a lot more.

Personally I find it incredibly inspiring – not the leaders, they professionals, but the regular Joes at the end of the day. The older ones, chubbier ones, people like me – daring me to give it a try.

My favorite chirp after the IronMan is when people ask me how I am – I reply “A little stiffer after IronMan than I’d care to admit.”

Addo Extreme – 2018

March 7, 2018 / zs2dh

Addo Extreme is an annual event and you can read about the 2017 event here.

Please read that one first 🙂 And take a look at some of the pics too!

Ok, now that you are back and have read all about the 2017 event, let me let you down slowly. I did not enter the event this year. Sad because I thought it would be a wonderful way to activate the park for Parks on the Air/WWFF. Activate a park while running a trail run – not too many can say “been there, done that”.

The event this year was almost rained out – and that in the drought ridden Eastern Cape!

According to the original deployment plan, Glen (ZS2GV) and I were to return to the same site as last year – this time without Andrew Gray. On the day, however, the entire ridge was inaccessible and we were relocated to deploy a cross-band repeater so the guys in the deep valleys could talk to the rest of the world.

Mike de Lange (ZS2MDL) was manning the (infamous) checkpoint at the bottom of the steep ridge up to our previous location and this was a challenge for communications. Mike used his satellite phone and HF (7.098KHz) for communications. We managed to link Eric (ZS2ECH) and Chris (ZS2AAW) with the JOC and that from a spot we found in the dark!

Ok, let me start from the beginning…

2GV and I left for the Addo park, Kirkwood entrance and after some *interesting* directions from the warden at the gate, we set off into the park. After some time we thought we might be going the wrong way, but the GPS could only tell us a general direction as none of the roads were on the map. All we had to go on was an image cropped from Google Earth and emailed to us – so we could not even zoom in, let alone get any information from it.

Our suspicions were confirmed when out of the bush popped a checkpoint with Rudi and Ellie. They confirmed our worst fears – that we had to turn around and go all the way back to the gate!

On the way to the gate we passed Mike (ZS2MDL) and co on their way to the checkpoint (they were supposed to be there) and Mike told me that Graydon had been looking for me on the town repeater and mentioned that it was “work related”. A 1000 possibilities ran through my mind, but eventually I could only think of one – the dairy was standing still.

We had no comms via VHF/UHF and no cell coverage either! Welcome to Africa!

We went back to the gate to receive further instructions and there we bumped into Chris ZS2AAW who asked us to assist with deploying “his repeater” which was a commercial one for the rangers who were also manning some of the checkpoints. This involved a long ride around the outside of the park – but did provide an opportunity to get back into cell range – and range of the other VHF stations.

All sorted! Thankfully it was all sorted out by the time I could get into contact and that is only one of the reasons I love my wife!

And so we drove and drove we did – around behind the prison and into the park from the other side. We deployed the repeater and then made our way down the steep hill into the river bed below and passed the checkpoint, heading towards the house Chris and Michael (ZS2MG) would be “roughing it” in.

We turned right and they turned left – and so it came to pass that we ended up where we were supposed to be and they were full up!

Our brief was to deploy a cross band repeater to connect deep valley checkpoints with the JOC and for that we would need more height.

Driving past “checkpoint 8” we looked for higher ground. Turning down a road marked “No Entry” had its rewards as we climbed onto a saddle and found a gem of a campsite! But by now it was dark.

A few signal checks and it seems like the site will work. GV puts up the repeater with a mobile antenna while I get supper on the go and sort out the tent.

We slept like babies!

Early Saturday morning Eric was on the air looking for anyone awake. As if he had nothing better to do!

Eric was early in the race and Mike had a satelite phone, so we were defunct by lunchtime and could pack up and go home. When GV asked if we could stand down we were given permission, but then chris asked if we could please retrieve his repeater as this would save them time later.

Instead of taking a leisurely lunch and slowly packing up, it now became a mission and we had to hurry to get to the repeater (on the other end of the park) and back again before dark.

The roads in the park are normally very good – you need a 4×4 in some of the more remote sections, but a normal sedan car gets you around 90% of the time. If the roads get wet they “turn to snot” and its 4×4 or broke.

The Mazda impressed me! Ok, its not a Jimny, but it did a fine job all the same.

We took the repeater back to Chris and Mike at the Kaboga house (see pics below). How they got a string UHF signal from that house to us over the amphitheater I really don’t know!

We followed Chris out – “‘cos all he had was a fortuner and we had a 4×4!”

Herald MTB and Road Race 2018

March 5, 2018 / zs2dh

A different place this time – not the bottom of tank hill as per the previous few years, but tank top! Yes – and I mentioned it on air too – that I was rocking the “tank top”!

Graydon, ZU2GH, my son manned the bottom of the hill and we had a great walk in and out again afterwards. Add to that the really great experience of having the young man join us at the braai the night before and you start to realize how lucky a bugger I am!

Tank Top is at a strategic split in the routes with the 80Km riders turning down the hill (to where Graydon was) and the 9Km riders going straight ahead. The inbound path was a little overgrown, resulting in the signage as placed by the organizers being “around the corner” and it seemed inevitable that someone was going to fall. I called it in and was given permission to move the markers into a better, more visible place and I believe we saved some skin in doing so.

17 February was the race day and we got into camp on the Saturday (16 Feb) and had a great time with friends from PEARS. Missing from the usual suspects were Colin and Jimmy (ZR2CRS and ZS2JIM) who were away and Gert ZS2GS who joined us on the Sunday morning.

Sunday morning we were needed in place by 05:30 for a comms check, so those who drove out on the day had to leave very early! Eric and Isolda, as usual, had a nap after the race before traveling home.

As I have mentioned, this is one of my favorite events, but having Gray join me made it the best one yet!

The Road Race takes place a week later and is a completely different kettle of fish! Drive your car to the point, take a big mast (needed this time in the new location at the bottom of the wall) and drive home later that same day.

Sunday 24th came and went – not my favorite event by any means, but it does help pay the bills for PEARS.

The Cockscomb Inn

February 16, 2018 / zs2dh

So, really, how long does it take to deploy a repeater?

Well, that is a bit like “How long is a piece of string?”. You see, I have deployed the Hamnet portable repeater in about 10 minutes – including a 5 minute chopper ride, but sometimes it takes a bit longer!

PEARS and Hamnet Eastern Cape do a lot of Mountain Bike races and we have a new one this year – the Cockscomb Challenge and for that we needed to reinstall the repeater at Cockscomb.

Now Cockscomb is a popular climb for hikers and members of the Mountain Club. There are two caves – both quite famous near the bottom of the final ascent. The mountain club one is basic with limited water supply, but the other is rather like the Ritz!

The touristy peak is not, however, the peak on which this story plays out. The radio repeaters are on a peak to the South West of the famous peak – and a lot less hospitable.

The repeater guys in the club are Chris ZS2AAW, Andrew Gray ZS2G and Glen ZS2GV. GV and Chris were going to go up on Monday 12 February to do the installation. Unfortunately, Chris had to withdraw and I volunteered to go.

GV picked me up Monday morning and we made our way to the PE Airport where our Squirrel helicopter was waiting for us. Not long after that we were airborne and routing for Cockscomb. Our pilot, James, had seen the peak earlier on his flight into PE and said it all looked good,

Bevan, ZS2RL, was going to take out the mast and coax rack for us and the landlord (owner of the site) wanted to do some maintenance, so a lift club was organized. James would take GV and I to the peak, then go down to the cell tower at the southern side of the Cockscomb range and meet up with Bevan and the landlord team and bring them to the peak – along with our mast and rack. Once all was done, James would take me down to the cell tower and Bevan would take me home.

Well that was the plan.

The landlord wanted to do some serious maintenance – replacing the floor and the batteries for a start – and then we would be able to put our repeater in some available spot. Well they were running a little late and then asked us to disconnect 8 of the 12 batteries and to remove the duplexer for their midband repeater and move them to the LZ (helicopter Landing Zone) – a mere 20m away from the container!

It took quite a while to get that done. At this stage the repeaters were all sharing the remaining 4 batteries and the batteries were about to be replaced…

Bevan at the bottom noticed some bad weather coming in and told us to hurry. We were still waiting for the landlord and then they bailed – asking us to simply put the stuff back! Oh, and hurry ‘cos the clouds are moving in fast!

Let’s do what we can and get outta here!

Without our mast and rack (which was still with Bevan at the bottom). Looking around at the skeleton remains of some other commercial repeaters we found a 6 foot aluminum pole and a 4 foot aluminum pole and that would do nicely. We put the 4foot one across from the mast to the rail track upright and the 6 foot went up from there. We put up a small dipole (UHF) and ran the coax down the mast, through the 4 foot pole to the mast and then onto the pre-existing rack and down to the container. the lightning arrestor was put in and the fly-lead made by Chris fitted on the inside.

Its coming together quickly now!

Ok, GV, you install the repeater into the rack and I’ll fetch the batteries and that GD duplexer!

Bevan on the radio – reminding us of the inbound weather – something to keep us motivated 😉

We got the batteries back into the container and all connected up – a quick call for a signal check and its perfect! James had moved the chopper from the southern slopes to a saddle on the northern side in an attempt to give us more time, but our luck had run out. James took off to the north and said he’d be back in the morning.

Ok, so we on the mountain for the night. Time to take stock.

I had packed some extra food, had dry/warm clothing and water. GV was a little shy. We needed to get water. Shelter was there – there was standing/sitting room in the container – but not enough space for even a shorty like me to get horizontal!

The weather was basically misty with very strong/gale force winds. Visibility was about 10m and getting worse all the time. Walking out was not the smart move – we had shelter and known coordinates and a little bit of thought and we solved the water issue.

We took the door off of the rack in the container and tied it to the mast at an angle. Water condensed and ran off the door to the lowest point – which ended up in GV’s bottle. This then solved the water issue so we really had no need to venture out.

Except boredom!

Our cellphones were draining their batteries steadily and our handhelds had no chargers either. I am fortunate in that I can reschedule my business life with a simple phone call to my very organized xyl. GV does not have that luxury and had to continue taking calls from clients and his employer. I let him use my power bank to float his battery for a while but with the inundation of WhatsApp messages we were both fighting a loosing battle. Why did neither of us have a wrist watch? We both techie geeks who use our cell phones – that’s why!

The boredom abated for a short while while we enjoyed our supper of tuna and provita. While it does not sound like much, it really was plenty of food. I had a BarOne for pudding, but something told me I had no idea how cold we were going to get – and GV was still in damp clothing. I decided to keep the chocolate – incase I needed it later. I was well aware of the fact that if either of us started to get hypothermic there was nothing we could do and chocolate might come in handy.

And the evening’s entertainment?

Monday evening is the PEARS news bulletin and we turned on when we thought it was time – only to find we had basically missed it. I did manage to hear my son call in and mention that they were looking for us.

Sitting in the container we were in a veritable Faraday cage. We could get a signal from the LZ, but that was out in the dark/cold/wet/wind outside. Bev was aware of our situation – I’d called her and told her the facts – we were safe, warm, dry, had food and water and were in no danger – and she understood.

The rest of the night was spent in alternating periods of sleep, chatter, and boredom. It is amazing just how numb your bum can get sitting for hours at a time! Lets be clear – this had nothing to do with the various topics of conversation or my “cell mate”. Long dark hours with no real indication of time was boring.

Tuesday morning

Tuesday morning was a gloomy start. Pushing the door open a few degrees revealed the hostile weather we had all night! No sign of the sun coming out – not even for that poor orphan girl Annie!

It began to sink in that at least an early morning lift off the mountain was not going to happen. Realising there was no rush we tucked ourselves back into bed and told room service not to disturb us. Ok, you got me – we just sat on our ammo boxes a while longer 🙂

Bevan and Gert arrived again – to keep an eye on the southern slopes of our holiday resort. It is quite amazing what a comfort that was. Although we understood they could not reach us – or really do anything to assist, they were there and it meant a lot.

I had a few brief walks outside (because I could) and the time passed surprisingly quickly. It was now raining and collecting further water was a simple task and did not really justify the hours we devoted to it (or perhaps that was just the boredom).

Our hearts were lifted with a cheerful ZS2RL (Bevan) telling us there was a possible lifting in the weather toward the late afternoon. James told us he could hold out until about 6:30 pm and if there was a gap in the clouds he would come and get us. We made very sure we were ready to roll at a moments notice, but our rapid deployment was not needed.

Donovan (ZS2DL) a friend of Glen and his family, with the assistance of Chris (ZS2AAW) and a few other hams tried to get Nicole (ZU2NX – GV’s daughter) on the air. Glen has an interesting shack and it took a while – and a few trips to get the shack on the air. Donovan then allowed the rest of the family to chat (under his supervision) and that was great. Unfortunately, the courtesy was not extended to Bev, but that is OK as she is used to me getting into these sort of situations. Vanessa and the girls benefited from the airtime with dad.

I must just brag for a minute here – so please forgive me the indulgence 🙂 My sons are both Hammies (like Nicole) and have ZU licenses. Graydon (ZU2GH) had attempted to make contact Monday evening, and my youngest Michael, made contact with me while I was at the LZ (waiting for Nicole to come online). My Hammies got on the air without the need for half a dozen hams to run around all afternoon! A quick chat to Mike (ZU2MOO) and then we handed over to the Cummings crew – but I was very proud!

18:30 ticked by with a gong louder than that from Big Ben! It came right down to it – another night at the resort!

As if to taunt us, the air cleared – almost completely at about 8pm. Too late for James as it was getting dark, but by 8:30 pm it was back to the misty mountain top that was our home.

As the evening crept over us, we began to take stock again. Battery levels were very low, morale however, was still surprisingly high. I had taken to turning my phone off most of the time and just turning it on for a few minutes every few hours. The problem was that by now our story was wide spread and WhatsApps were in the several hundreds each time I turned on. When your battery is at a few percent of capacity, receiving messages is only a part of the problem – you then need to scroll through these messages to find any that are important.

You should have seen some of the messages! Everything ranging from “I could walk them out in two hours” to “I’ve got a 4×4 I’ll go fetch them!” from people who did not even know which peak we were on, or the type of terrain! There were, of course, the “leave them up there” jokes which, while we took no offense to them, did serve as QRM on our cell phones and cost us valuable battery life.

Supper consisted of the much talked about, Bar-One! You divide and I’ll decide – it’s child’s play really.

Now before you think we were starving – let me reassure you we were not. We were in no way active and a half a Bar-One was enough to see us through. I have been asked by many people if I ever thought of eating Glen – and my answer was always the same – Have you smelt him? It would take me weeks to get THAT hungry!

Can’t get worse? Is that a challenge?

We were bored and the long dark hours passed very slowly. We were nodding off every now and then – followed by standing up to “let more o2 get to the brain”. Somewhere around 1am I opened the door to see a large flash of lightning!

thunderstorms were raging south, east, and north of us. I can only assume they were on the western side too – but I was not going to go outside to confirm.

Great!

Accepting there was nothing I could do, I went back to my ammo case and was soon nodding off again.

The plan was to get a chopper lift off early in the morning, failing which would have the Mountain rescue guys climbing up to bring us additional gear and food and to walk us out.

Dawn broke to the sound of gusting winds outside. We naturally assumed we would be spending several more hours on the summit, eagerly awaiting the MCSA group – many of whom are personal friends and people with whom we work on MCSA / Hamnet exercises.

Eventually I ventured out only to be greeted by a stunning (but windy) morning. ZS2RL and ZS2GS, already back at their post at the foot of the mountain were keen to tell us the chopper was already airborne and on its way!

We were at the LZ with no need for a further invitation! GV directed James in – indicating the wind direction and James landed that Squirrel as if it had sore feet! I certainly could not have done a better job!

James indicated we could approach and we did – quickly. GV opened the door while I started lifting the ammo cases. Now I am not sure, but I am pretty convinced that the ammo cases themselves wanted to leave and were jumping into the chopper themselves. It did make me realize that while we had spent way too many hours sitting on the ammo cases, they could not have enjoyed it as much!

A few brief moments later we were in the chopper, airborne and talking to James who was amazed at how chirpy we were.

The familiar glow of orange from the MCSA crowd at the bottom LZ showed us the wind direction and James once again landed the chopper like a pro – having done a very low pass over Bevan and Gert.

The reception at the bottom was on a par with a hero’s welcome! It was awesome! James had breakfast for us, my son Graydon had traveled out with my good friend Andrew Gray (Hamnet director EC) and everything very quickly returned to normal.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Gert (ZS2GS) and to Bevan (ZS2RL) who drove out to the mountain daily – for three days straight. I really appreciate your support. And to GV who put up with me in a confined space and did not kill me – Thank you.