GM/SS-171 Allermuir Hill

A quick dash up the local hill in the hope of managing some 2m S2S. I must be getting fitter as I arrived much earlier than estimated on the alerts page; 45 mins from the Ski centre car park (no, it’s a dry slope, it’s not that cold up here …).

Initially called CQ on 144.3 ssb but no joy - moved to FM and had some nice chats with locals mostly north of the Forth - beautiful view today, lovely weather. It was very windy - but there are a couple of strong steel posts about 5m from the trig point which clearly used to carry a notice, but which make an ideal support for a SOTA pole. I had to keep the beam quite low (3m agl) though because of the wind. Good to manage one S2S with Graeme 2M0GIL/P on Ben Lomond, which is only about 80km line of sight (on a clear day - a bit hazy today in that direction). Graeme was using 500mW which was encouraging.

Thanks to MM3XGP and GM0AXY for spots as I tried to catch others. I’m sorry (a) I didn’t manage to catch Jimmy MM3EYP/P in the Cairngorms, and (b) I didn’t manage to contact Don G0RQL who Ken GM0AXY had said was looking for me. I did call CQ for a while but the band was generally pretty dead - I heard no ssb at all from the south. I think the Southern Scotland hills are a real challenge to get over from near Edinburgh - it’s much easier from the southwest where the takeoff is over the Irish Sea!

Glad to get back to the hills again though after our hols away.

73
John GM8OTI

In reply to GM8OTI:
Pleasure to work you S2S again today John,The wind was a bit of a problem although i managed to escape the worst of it sitting just off the W.side of the summit.Thanks also to Ken also for the spot.
Unfortunately i never managed any contact with Jimmy either,although i was too late for the Ben Macdui activation.
Hope to catch you again soon from you next hill.
73’s
Graeme 2M0GIL…

Hi John and Graeme,

Sorry I didn,t make thw s2s QSO woth you both, I was mainly beaming north towards Inverness, I did beam south, but I got no reply.

Jimmy M(M)3EYP