GM/WS trip March 2015

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Simon

Doh! I’ll sort that out ASAP. I default all Flickr uploads to private and then change to public… when I remember!

Thanks for letting me know Simon.

Hi Gerald

After a ‘heads up’ from Jack GM4COX/p I hung around on Mynydd Cynros yesterday to get an s2s with you but it transpires that whilst I was on 20m you were on 40m :frowning: Another ‘doh’…

73 Allan GW4VPX

Fixed! Thanks again Simon for pointing this out.

Oh heck… when I moved to 20M I called you direct about 20 minutes after you had been spotted, but no reply. Shame! Although on reflection you might have been too close for 20M anyway. I just about made one G contact on 20M, the rest were (as expected) much further out.

Many thanks Gerald. I’m enjoying following your trip through your great photos.

If you can catch one of those eagles (on camera!) maybe I’ll be able to persuade the rest of the family that they’d enjoy a (SOTA) holiday up there, as my little girl would be most impressed!

73, Simon

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Are you using a panoramic lense Gerald ? Light capture is also very good.

Stunning weather - your so lucky. Hope Sue is enjoying the walking as well.

Jonathan

Hi Jonathan, it’s the panorama feature of my Samsung Galaxy S4. I believe most smartphones will do this.

I also use a waterproof compact camera which gives me an optical zoom.

Picture quality from the phone is excellent and I struggle to work out if the phone or camera is better!

Friday 27/3/15 - GM/SI-158 Meall a’ Mhaoil 284M
Another bad weather forecast led to starting the day with some animal and bird watching at Kylerhea (more on that later). A late clearance, or so I thought, led to a quick dash up this small hill. No easy route available, you have to do some bog trotting. I’ve put two tracks on SOTA Mapping, I used the steep route up and the longer less steep route to come down.

Nice summit shelter surrounded the Trig Point.

I was in a hurry as we were meeting our friends for dinner, so a quick 40M only activation was planned. FT857, 7AH LiFePO4 battery. 25W on 40M into an inverted Vee.

40m was busy and I struggled to find a free slot, but eventually I self spotted on 7.114. The rain then started and became heavy very quickly so I retreated into the bothy bag. The wind also increased considerably. After 10 minutes the calls dried up and I couldn’t afford the time to hang about calling, so I moved to the WAB Net on 7.160 for 15 more contacts. The rain was now torrential and some was finding its way in through the stitching in the bothy bag, so I called a halt before the FT857 got too wet. All UK contacts apart from 1 x Belgium, 1 x Italy, 1 x Germany. Thanks to everyone.

I packed up in the pouring rain and set off down. Fortunately it stopped before I reached the car.

Wildlife Count: (Bit of a cheat this one - spent two hours in the wildlife hide at Kylerhea); two Otters, a Grey Seal, Herons, Shag, Cormorants, Black Backed Gulls, Hooded Crows.

Summit pictures on Flickr - nothing to excite with these I’m afraid.

Probably my last day on the hills in Scotland for this trip as the trip home looks to be wet and stormy tomorrow… but you never know!

Dash and confound it :confounded:
Missed you on that one another WAB square on an island.

But again big thanks for your little Scotish Tour providing some lovely Sotas and Western Scotland WAB’s too, Certainly with the two on Raasey Island. :smiley:

Karl

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Karl, keep an eye on the alerts for early May… you may find someone visiting Scottish Islands that have SOTA summits and trig points.

Thanks for the Head up
Certainly will be interesting with Longer daylight hours etc :smiley:

Karl

It was nice to meet with Gerald (and Sue) on Cairnpapple Hill SS-254 earlier. He seemed to be having fun despite a howling wind blowing across the open summit, good use of the trig as a shelter!

I can see it across the valley from the bedrooms here. I’d have muscled in and snaffled 4 QSOs on Gerald’s equipment but he was just about finished when I arrived and as he has a good 5hr drive home from here and had already seen the snow plows in use on his drive down was keen to get a move on.

Great to meet you on a windswept hillside Andy! Just home. More later.

Saturday 28/3/15 - GM/WS-254 Cairnpapple Hill 312M
Weather forecast was bad for the morning, but improving in the afternoon, so I planned a quick activation on the way home. Some research turned up this hill, which is a 10 minute walk from the parking area.

It may have been dry, but it was certainly windy! Some careful guying of the mast was needed. I was able to “hide” behind the Trig Point to get out of the worst of the wind.

I set up for 40M SSB inverted vee and 2M FM vertical dipole. FT857 with 7AH LiFEPO4. 35W on 40M and 10W on 2M.

I worked a couple of Airfields on the Air stations before I finally found a free frequency at 7.142. After that I was “popular” with WAB (Worked All Britain) Trig Point finders as well as the usual SOTA chasers. All stations GM, G and GW except 1 DL and 1 EA. I moved to 2M FM, but there were only a couple of takers and I couldn’t hang about due to the wind and the long drive home.

About this time Andy MM0FMF wandered up and said hello! It was just as I was going QRT so we chatted while I packed everything up… well shouted at each other over the wind is a better description.

Great to meet another SOTA participant.

I haven’t added a route to SOTAWatch, the one from GM4CFS is perfect. I have put a track log onto SOTA Mapping.

Two pictures here

That’s it for this trip. I was going to round it off with another day out tomorrow in North Wales, but the forecast is awful, so time for “jobs” instead.