On this trip, I activated two sites near Limassol, 5B/CY-017 and 5B/CY-048. The latter is only about 15 minutes from Limassol, and the former about a half hour in terms of driving. However, since I was coming from Nicosia, 5B/CY-017 was closer, about 70 minute away, the last half hour on paved by narrow and curvy mountain roads.
The summit is not far from the lookout tower in the photo above. As seen on the map at below, the site is just beyond a picnic area, which includes working bathrooms and a ranger station. Taking the red path upwards, past the point where it splits from the blue path, the road is dirt, but it is well-packed and maintained. It looks like power lines and poles along the side of this road are very recent, so perhaps the installation at the top of the hill is recent or was recently renovated.
Follow the red road up to the point marked P2. Here, I saw a few other cars, and there are trail heads heading in a few direction. I continued westward uphill towards the summit to P1, which is just behind the lookout building. In principle, depending on how much time you have for the activation, you could park near the picnic site and ranger station, or at the P2 intersection, or all the way up at P1.
There is room enough for a few cars there. Just behind the car, another road continues upward towards the summit, the yellow dotted path. While you could take a vehicle up that road, it’s a short and not too steep walk, so you might as well just take it on foot.
There are some other roads leading away from the lookout building, but I wouldn’t recommend them. It looks like the one heading NW is only a blind stub. The one to the SW is very steep and sandy — I wouldn’t trust traction on it.
According to my GPS, the road or path upwards goes beyond the summit and tops out onto a flat, open grassy area. I explored beyond that point, climbing a bit over rocks along the ridge, but there is not much elevation to be gained. I poked around what I considered to the highest point and did not see a trig point, so perhaps there isn’t one on this unnamed summit.
There are no tall trees near the grassy area, so I used my BuddiPole mast, which was easy to extend and guy on the flat area. I realized when I got there that my antenna analyzer was sitting on my desk at home, so instead of putting the whole BuddiPole together, I just used the mast to support my endfed halfwave antenna, which worked FB on 20m.
The highlight of this activation was working another 5B station, which is a first for me. Normally, I wouldn’t have expected to hear another 5B on 20m, but I had line of site to Limassol, where 5B4ANL (Niko) heard me. We were 599 both ways.
I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get to the next site (taking the blue route, above), so I only activated the one band and continued onward.
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