Four and run

Saturday 24th March 2018 - Bishop Wilton Wold G/TW-004

OK, hands up, I did it. It wasn’t an accident, it was deliberate. It was in fact premeditated. I plead guilty.

I had a dep gig at the Merchant Taylors Hall in York. This was with a wedding band, none of whom I knew before, but who had booked me on the strength of a third party recommendation. Basically, it was appropriate to turn up on time!

During the morning, I was writing out an arrangement/orchestration ahead of a recording session with a different band on the Sunday, and took a little longer than anticipated to complete that work. So I was a little late setting out for my Yorkshire gig. Well, early if I was going directly there, but late if i wanted to bag an activation en route!

To get to G/TW-004, I had to drive past York and onto the A166 Bridlington road. I kept an eye on my satnav ETA. On arrival at the roadside summit, I figured that I had, essentially, twenty minutes to walk to the operating point, set up, activate, pack away and get back to the car. The “walk” being a 50 yard slog over horizontal ground certainly helped, but nonetheless, the time window was tight!

I did briefly check the handheld for any local VHF activity. There wasn’t any, so I got straight on with erecting my newly built 20m groundplane antenna. My alert was posted on SOTAwatch, so all I had to do was find a clear QRG and call CQ SOTA. Keeping one eye on my smartphone, I could see that I had been received with a strong signal in Canada, so I carried on calling and waited for the chasers to respond.

In the space of three minutes, I worked three US stations, and one in Bulgaria. I allowed myself one last QRZ? call - which was not answered - and I immediately went QRT and packed up. Four-and-run? You bet!

I got to my gig on time!

7 Likes

Another smash-and-grab this morning. Either that or only four people wanted to answer the CQ.

Monday 11th February 2019 - Kinder Scout G/SP-001

Gig: no gig, but Late Night Liam is on Canalside Radio 102.8FM / streaming online, tonight around 10.15pm.
Soup: Baxters Lentil & Bacon

The alarm was set for 0500, but I was wide awake at 0445 anyway. I wanted to be home before 1130 in order to walk into town for lunch with my XYL Marianne, and calculated that all to be viable.

Walking from Rushup Edge, the first hour was in darkness, the way ahead illuminated by headtorch. Dawn broke as I passed the trig point at Brown Knoll. Some of the walking had been slow and tricky due to a thin but treacherous film of black ice over some of the flagstones.

The upside of the temperature was the the black peat to the side of the slippery bits would support a boot, rather than swallow it, so reasonable progress was still made.

First job at Kinder Low trig point was my breakfast - soup of course, which was very welcome and enjoyed.

There was plenty of activity on 2m FM, but not a great deal of interest in my CQ calls. You can sometimes get your four in less than two minutes on these hills, even with a handheld. On this occasion it was more like twenty.

The descent was much easier with the beautiful sunshind having eliminated most of the ice. I was back down in just over an hour. I made it home for 1115z, easily my earliest ever return from a Kinder Scout activation.

More walking - 2 miles each way into Macclesfield town centre and back home, and a nice lunch with Maz. Domestic bliss extends yet further.

Anyway, 2215 tonight - https://canalsideradio.net/player/index.htm

4 Likes

Maybe a suggestion to Baxters… Breakfast Soup tasting of egg, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes and tattie scones?

Don’t forget the black pud!

And haggis.

Mmmm, haggis!:+1:

3 Likes

Traditional soup. New variety. Oxymoronic?

I’m surprised there isn’t Breakfast Flavour soup given that you can get “Lunch Flavour” cup-a-soup.


(0:22 - 0:44)

Tuesday 19th March 2019 - The Cloud G/SP-015

Bit of teaching work in Kidsgrove meant it was a very familiar most-of-the-way home. Muscle memory pulled my car onto Cloudside and I went for a stroll to the summit.

One of the four main paths off the summit is now waymarked as a shared trail for walkers and cyclists, but a NT sign on the ascent still declares that cycling is not permissible on The Cloud.

2m FM handheld, 4 QSOs, including a mobile near Halifax.

2 Likes

Thursday 21st March 2019 - The Cloud G:SP-015

Basically, just read the previous report. That more or less covers it. Well, apart from the bit about a mobile near Halifax.

And it was good to have a natter with Dave GW8NZN/P, who was on Moel Arthur activating for HEMA. I made a note of his HuMP in case things change sometime in the future.

I’ve stopped chasing a pair of Operators for hit and run. summits are valuable. Grid squares are valuable and airtime is expensive. (Yes, I know, the airwaves are free, but dollar-Euro-Rubble-Yen value isn’t the definition. A summit isn’t a solo investment and many are looking for goats.
Play nice.

If you’d had a twenty call pile-up, would you have stayed?

Yes, of course. The thread title is tongue-in-cheek!

Check out my activator log and look at the number of QSOs per activation.

1 Like

Please, forgive me. I’m in a country with no political leader and we’ve all lost our sense of humour.
Wedding music typically includes songs such as “Already Gone,” “your cheating heart,” “she’s so cold,” "Cold as ice…the list goes on and on and on!!!
Just keep the beer flowing
Victor/KI7MMZ

1 Like

“Let those in glass houses throw no bricks”
No comments from over here Victor! :wink: now where’s that pint? (Litres are also available)

PS I think “Fight the good fight” is a more traditional hymn on the occasion you mention :wink:

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I assume Haggis Broth is a variant of Baxter’s Game Soup, because both are only available in the “shooting season”!

:wink:

73,
Wlat

…and what a terrible thing to do to a poor innocent wee haggis!

I’m surprised the can isn’t shorter on one side than the other (to better fit the haggis in) :wink:

The Pint is at the Pub.

You know, I was just talking to a dude about building a still and he said he used some Air-Core coax to collect the liquor.

Play list: “Go your own Way” is also appropriate!