The snow has almost completely vanished from the city, and what is left is piles of gravel waiting to picked up the street sweepers. As the snow in the higher elevated mountains are beginning to melt as well we had a little excursion on April 24th to see the status of our little cabin. The plan is to get the QTH finished and beacons up and running again this year so better get started sooner than later.

Even with two shovels it was just too much!

Last year the snow had melted quite early in March, so the local Red Cross couldn’t get that far up the mountain road with their snowmobile before calling it. This year however, we waited until the end of April before giving it a go and the road seemed to be cleared of snow and fallen trees. The last 2 kilometers however there were a few thick patches where the sun hadn’t reached as much, and we had to walk the final trek on foot.

If the camera isn’t the one who’s tilted, Telenor is in trouble

Our biggest point of interest was to see the status of the new roof we had installed last year. After the new broadcasting mast was installed at Vassfjellet in the mid 2000’s, falling ice was a bigger concern and a new sheet metal roofing was mounted in 2016 to protect the broken wood beneath. This sheet metal was of very dense corrugation and when it got dented became very hard to remount after it has served us for many years, and we had to try a different approach this time. The current solution consists of a very very thick layer of wood and less dense corrugated metal roofing sheets. It seemed to have worked well so far, as no puncture had occurred, although it had gotten a handful of dents.

  • 2024: Near mint condition
  • 2025: We’d prefer if this was the “Before” shot

Inside of the cabin our equipment was doing very well. The temperature inside seemed to have kept a steady 10 degrees Celsius through the wind and snow so we were very pleased with how well the insulated walls were working. A few tools seemed to have fell on the floor, most likely from the vibrations caused by the strong winds. LB0VG also did a few measurements on the ceiling to work on his 2m VHF antenna. As we didn’t bring any sort of paper, he had to improvise with some rubble cardboard in the garbage.

As good as any left-handed man can do with some spare cardboard

It was a little too early to begin working on our project, but hopefully in a month or two the weather and roads are at a satisfactory level. At May 4th we also had a meeting at our clubhouse for those who were interested to contribute, and we hope to see them all summit the mountain with us later this summer!