In reply to G4OIG:
Housdon is the only hill I know that’s down a dip!
I’ve never climbed it yet. Pretty good to work Derek on 2m SSB though…I thought the only chance of VHF contacts would be East or West.
Cheviot pretty well blocks things to the South.
Rob (G1TPO)
In reply to G1TPO:
Cheviot pretty well blocks things to the South.
Yes Rob, a bit like Cadair Idris GW/NW-009 blocks everything to the south of Craig y Castell GW/NW-074. However, taking the right kit for the summit helped on that occasion - I managed to work Don G0RQL in Devon via back-scatter by using my BNOS 150W linear! It is certainly no use climbing these shielded summits with just a handheld - unless you take your own chasers, Hi.
Although an activation of Housdon might not gain much from an alert, I can say without a doubt having activated several of the nearby GM/SS summits, that I have found the alerts system very useful in preparing chasers for my activations. On one occasion I even swapped the summit order around and added one in, keeping the chasers tuned in to what I was doing through the day. Quite a number (all down in England) worked me on all 4 summits, which is testament to their tenacity. Not having to scrape for contacts on those relatively remote summits certainly raises the endorphin count!
73, Gerald G4OIG
In reply to G3NYY:
Time and the Devil! I would rather folk posted an alert than not. It can make a massive difference how I organise my day. If folk have alerted I can be in the shack, doing stuff for an hour each side before I decide to go and do something where I can’t hear the radio.
The problem can be folk forget to take BST in to account and any activator will tell you traffic and conditions make it just an estimate, that is before they underestimate just how steep a particular hill is or get halfway up before realising they left something vital in the car.
My chaser scores have never been lower, even though the number of activations is higher than ever. I blame not alerting, handheld only activations and someone distributing my shift rota so I miss all the good stuff ;0)
73 Steve GW7AAV