First operation of 2026 was due. We must not waste time as there are many activations planned for this year.
This time, the goal was to keep OK5AN on the mic as long as possible to let him make some HAM XPs finally.
We took a train from Prague downtown to Praha-Klanovice, well prepared for the snow and ice that awaited us at the location.
The gear we used was x6100 and our 40m endfed, professinally placed in a tree crown.
During our OP, some horses passed us by, which was a nice distraction in the times we didn't have any pile up. We managed to operate 2 pile ups, but to achieve the needed 44 and something (to be safe) was a bit cold struggle, especially in the end. We found out that combination of hiking and skiing socks is still not enough for longer OPs in snow.
We noticed a strange interference/noise/signal during the op, it buzzed on 7.175 and stayed pretty long:
We are not quite sure what it was, we just hope its not coming from our rig. If you happen to know, please reach out and share.
The QSOs mostly included a happy new year wishes, which was nice. Our farthest call was probably Turkey, 2 times, which didn't seem bad given our dire conditions.
OK5AN managed to do most of the QSOs, so our OP ended up successful. Next time, we must get farther and leave the Prague area it seems.