We had already discovered the "summit" (actually just a large boulder) in the Brauneck ski area with the two antennas on top many years ago and had already seen that there was a steel cable as an aid for the ascent.
Although Nilpferd had spent almost his entire working life with communications technology, he was unable to explain the purpose of the antennas at that time.
But now there is a cache right next to the antennas and we made another attempt.
The antenna cables led to a metal box at the foot of the rock, which was of course locked. But the key was hanging on the side of the box and Nilpferd couldn't resist to have a look inside.
In addition to a power supply unit and a overvoltage protector, the metal box contained a device from the American company Pacific Crest called "ADL Vantage" (what's that?).
The research showed that this system is used for an RTK (Real Time Kinematic) function.
A GPS receiver is located at a precisely measured position, which distributes the difference between the currently measured position and the correct position by radio.
The information is then sent to the snow groomers during slope preparation, which can determine their position with centimeter accuracy using their own GPS measurement and the correction data received by radio.
Therefore they can drive very precisely and this prevents them from accidentally hitting a cable car pole or rolling over a toilet cabin at the side of the ski slope at night or during a snowstorm 😁.
There was a sticker on the outside of the metal box saying "SNOWsat Repeater Station".
This indicates that the GPS receiver is at a different location and here only its correction signals are forwarded so that they can be received everywhere in the ski area.
Oh, that was a lot of technology today, but after we had climbed „Mt. Antenna“ we climbed another real mountain.