SOTA day with car fire

A report by Peter Freeman VK3PF tells of how a day out on the Summits On The Air peaks lead to his loss of a vehicle that caught fire and burned, but that didn’t prevent a further SOTA activation during the wilderness trip.

Several operators had placed Alerts for activations last weekend. Peter VK3PF said he arrived at the Mt Selma Road South Road junction ahead of Tony VK3CAT and proceeded south towards Mt Useful. As Peter VK3PF puts it, "I heard something 'pop' and the engine started sounding rough. As I was slowing down, I saw some smoke from under the bonnet, so I slowed and pulled over just after the engine died." Continuing the drama he said: "I jumped out to look under the car and saw flames. I quickly jumped back on 2m FM and alerted Tony VK3CAT that I had a problem. I then started to get gear out of the car, as the flames rapidly increased in intensity and black smoke was billowing forth."

Rescued was the SOTA gear and some bags, the IC-706MkIIG was disconnected "as the cabin filled of acrid black smoke and the flames got getting bigger. That was it – stand back and watch!"
Out of mobile phone contact, Peter VK3PF was joined by Tony VK3CAT, who had arrived with a fire extinguisher that was of little use. HF radio was used to get fire trucks sent to the scene by radio amateurs.

The CFA truck and crew arrived, only to see a little smoke coming from what was left of the vehicle. After thanking the firefighters, Peter and Tony started to head home, but with two SOTA operators in the vehicle, so what do you expect - they went to we went to the summit of Mt Useful VK3/VT-016 for a quick activation.

For the full story and more pictures, click the following Link

Click Here To Return To Previous Page