An unpleasant surprise during a day of SOTA

Late on Friday night I decided to get out on Saturday for some SOTA activity. Several operators had placed Alerts for activations, so there was the chance of several Summit to Summit (S2S) contacts. I posted an Alert for my first summit, but for those planned for later in the day. During the day, things were busy: with plans for a multi-summit day, I took no pictures until after my little surprise mid-afternoon.

I was on the road a little after 0630 local time and headed to Trafalgar, Willow Grove, Hill End and Icy Creek and on towards Tanjil Bren, then up the Tooronga Tanjil Link Road. Left into Mundic Road and then again onto Mt Tooronga Road and park the car clear of the locked gate. Walk up the road to the high point below the summit (about 1.2 km), then climb up the slope to the summit.

Mt Tooronga Range VK3/VT-026 1257 m 8 points plus 3 point winter bonus

I was a few minutes later that my posted Alert of 2300Z Friday when I was set up about to call to see if the frequency was clear. Rod VK2TWR/p beat me to it by seconds, so we quickly completed a S2S contact. I moved down to 7.085 MHz and called to see if the frequency was clear. Ron VK3RS gave me the go ahead as well as contact. A string of contacts quickly followed before I went to 40 m CW to work Tony VK3CAT/p on Mt Matlock VK3/VC-001 for a S2S. Back to 7.085 for more chasers, and then a quick….

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