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