Cloud & Gun 2018

Saturday 27th January 2018 - The Cloud G/SP-015

2m FM handheld - 8 QSOs - reputation restored :wink:

3 cars on Cloudside parked parallel to Red Lane, taking up the spaces for seven cars. :frowning:

This afternoonā€™s activation will be my 97th in the last 90 days, and my 66th consecutive day of SOTA activating. All good, but need to start striding out a bit further like yesterday. I guess Black Hill G/SP-002, plus the Ponderosa Pair must be pretty imminent!

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Five QSOs today. Lightning fast activation between jobs.

QRX QRX G/SP-015 to be activated within the hourā€¦

Tuesday 30th January 2018

Quite a nice night for a walk up The Cloud. 3 degrees, foggy, still. Got to the trig point, handheld appeared to be working FB and made two contacts on 2m FM.

Started the descent, and without any warning, my Petzl Actik headtorch went off! My previous model used to give me a 4 hour warning flash, which was always my cue to replace the batteries before next use. Seems this one doesnā€™t have that feature - or I need to read the manual!

The screen on my phone pointing at the ground gave me zone bit of light, but not much. I searched for a flashlight app on my phone, but couldnā€™t find one. Then I had a brainwave - video the path during the descent, causing a continuous bright flash to be on.

This worked a treat - with the bonus of collecting an extremely boring SOTA video to share with you all.

Wednesday 31st January 2018 - The Cloud G/SP-015

Another visit to the Worldā€™s Most Activated SOTA Summit between some A Level maths teaching in a college in Crewe, and some GCSE maths private tuition in Holmes Chapel.

As I arrived at the parking spot, a couple of National Trust trucks came down the track and departed, both filled with members of the working party for the path restoration. I wondered what progress I would note on my way up. Answer? Nothing that I could discern.

At the summit I met a second NT party, a separate one concerned with woodland management. We had a good natter about various things, including the recent incident with mountain bikers, of which they were already aware. Inevitably, they were interested in what I was up to, and we had a good chat about that. It was good to hear that the NTā€™s position on such things remains that they consider it a ā€œlow-impact activityā€ based on the lightweight portable/packable gear used, and the short duration of activations, and that as such, it is tolerated.

As regards the SOTA activation itself, this time I was determined to break my 2018 HF ā€˜duckā€™, and set up the 40m dipole. I was soon regretting it though, watching the pole bend in the wind. I had a few goes at resetting it, but I was starting to think that my policy of hitherto waiting for decent weather before going HF, was a rather sensible one!

Anyway, no problems and no disasters. In fact the only disruption was when EA2CNA suddenly landed on 7.032MHz and started calling a QRS CQ - he obviously couldnā€™t hear me! Others on the frequency tried, in vain, to ask him to QSY - but he couldnā€™t hear them either! Just seven QSOs on 40m CW, then a couple on 2m FM.

Iā€™m definitely out of practice at setting up an HF dipole and packing it away again. Iā€™m sure I used to be able to do it much faster!

Thursday 1st February 2018 - The Cloud G/SP-015

Some 1-2-1 GCSE maths tutoring in Packmoor, Stoke-on-Trent had me heading out in Cloud direction early doors anyway, so I made it a bit earlier still to squeeze in a walk and an activation on the way.

Just one QSO made on 2m FM - Steve MW0ISC in Mold.

Friday 9th February 2018 - The Cloud G/SP-015

Same old same old. Ascended with pack hoping for a 40m multimode activation. Far too windy at the top. Hunted around for 15 minutes trying to find a suitably sheltered spot in the AZ, but failed.

So, again, 2m FM on the VX7 handheld. 3 QSOs.

Iā€™m fed up of this now. Iā€™d like some nice weather please

Well my wish isnā€™t coming true today - what a rotter of a day - again.

Still, Iā€™ve activated a SOTA summit every day so far this year, and in fact every day since 25th November 2017, so I donā€™t want it to end, just yet anyway! So, up The Cloud G/SP-015 it will be, early afternoon, on my way to the match (if it isnā€™t postponed due to a waterlogged pitch that is).

22nd and 24th November 2017 are starting to grate at me a bit now, as Iā€™d have activated every day back to the 1st November were it not for those. Work overseas with extremely limited spare time and transport options, is expected to bring the run to an abrupt halt in early March anywayā€¦

I bet someone is selling a flux capacitor on ebay at a very reasonable price :smile:

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Saturday 10th February 2018 - The Cloud G/SP-015

78th consecutive day of SOTA activating.

110th SOTA activation in the last 102 days.

Still too windy and rainy to be messing about with portable HF antennas, so 2m FM handie once again.

Four QSOs on 145.450MHz FM. Then to the Moss Rose to watch Macclesfield Town defeat Guiseley AFC 2-1, and return to the top of the league.

First Joe Longthorne show of the year tomorrow (Sunday) in Blackpool, so a different reference - and the actual collection of an activator point - very much on the cards.