I’ll post a full report on my blog later this week as loads of stuff happened during the day but I wanted to do a briefer SOTA-focused report here first.
It was not quite midnight when I arrived at EI/IE-018 Two Rock Mountain. More like 10:00am ish. No camels were being sent to bed, nor were there any cactuses to become friends with.
I was at Two Rock on a mission. To make 12 contacts on 12 metres to earn my Midnight Runners badge that @G4TGJ inadvertently sparked the inspiration in me to invent (or shades of the 2014 SOTA challenge @GM4LLD 
) earlier this week.
12 on 12 was the order of the day here and I made the challenge. Nobody else in the entire universe could likely care less. But I started it, so I wanted to make true on my word and I wasn’t leaving the summit until it was done.
It made a nice change to just be up on Two Rock for a hike. I spend a lot of hours here through the year trail running. I was also able to test out my new Savotta bag (blame @K4SWL who enabled me a couple of months back 
).
The hike up was interesting. I fired up Echolink on my blower to shout out on the local repeater that I was hiking up for an activation. As the session connected, two jamons were in the middle of an extraordinary QSO.
A jamon in Spain had landed on a Sporadic E moment and was able to hit a repeater in Cork on 2 metres (and I think 70cm but I couldn’t get all of the over due to signal dropout). I popped a message on the reflector to give the heads up that there may well be big lift on today.
I carried on with my hike, listening to the QSO between Spain and Ireland. Great bit of SWL!
Arriving at the summit, rather than hit HF I went straight to 270 FM and set up my 6 metre Sotabeams Carbon mast and Yaesu FT-65.
My VHF/UHF comfort blanket 
(basically the VHF/UHF version of @F4WBN who I got today on CW, thanks Christian!) @GW0PLP was straight in there first in line like the legend he is.
But the QSO failed!
Don could hear me but just as he was giving his report he got obliterated by QRM. It was like my Yaesu was just destroyed by noise and I couldn’t hear a thing!
It didn’t get any better. I was in dire VHF straits and thought it was game over, even when I quickly switched to the RH-770. Nada. Pure S9 noise destroying everything in it’s path.
I packed up and moved position and tried again. About 10 minutes passed and finally the noise dropped. If anyone knows what that could have been I would love to know.
I made 2 QSO’s to get the party started. 1 S2S to Northern Ireland and a HEMA QSO in the Isle of Man. Not bad going!
Time to move to HF and go for my 12 on 12 Midnight Runners badge and membership. 
Weapons of choice were my KX2 and Diamond RHM-12. No messing about, I was straight on to 12 metres and calling CQ. I was expecting a slog but the first 10 QSO’s were swift enough. I finally got my 12 with a variety of contacts across Europe. I actually got 13 contacts but a QSO with @SP9FMP was lost completely which is a great shame, sorry Chris.
It took a while to get the last two but I wasn’t budging until my task was done and done it eventually was.
Mission complete. Hurrah!
With the 12 on 12 completed I then moved to 20 meters and 40 metres which both seemed fairly quiet to my ears. It didnt help that the wind picked up and kept blowing my antenna over! I ended up finding some rocks to weigh the Manfrotto down and it didn’t budge after that.
I decided at this point to pack up the RHM-12 as the summit was getting busy. With my gear packed I got the mast out to try 270 again.
I am glad I did as I bagged 6 more contacts on 2 meters AND 70cm! And then, just as I was about to switch back to HF…there he was…the legend had emerged from the Irish Sea to make a QSO!
I managed to get Don on 2 meters FM. I explained what happened with the QSO and we had a quick chat to see could we do 2m and 70cm CW. Don had an issue with his 70cm setup so we didn’t try, but we did try 2m.
Don had his antenna setup horizontal and I was vertical with my mast but we tried anyway. I got him 519 but heard no RST back. Don disappeared in to the ether so alas no 2 metre CW contact this time which was a shame. I called on 270 CW for a while longer hoping Don or anyone else may appear, but no dice.
I packed my gear away at this point and went back to the trig point and got out my KH1 to give it a SOTA test. More contacts followed on 20m, 15m and 17m. Lovely jubbly!
That was HF done for me as time was pressing on and I needed to think about leaving the summit. I got the Yaesu and RH-770 out again to try and mop up a few more on 2 and 70.
Glad I did now as 6 more QSO’s followed on both 2 and 70! Remember. ALWAYS call on 2 meters and never forget about 70cm, it isn’t a waste of time! It does my head in how criminally overlooked 70cm is.
Time to pack up and go home. 45 QSO’s in total. Map below:
It was a great day out with fantastic weather. I did a good bit more when I got back, but I will save all that for another day.
Thank you so much for those that contacted me on 12 metres today. It meant a lot to me to get those 12 on 12, and also for all the chases across all of the bands today, particularly 270 of course.
I hope others may feel inspired to try for 12 on 12 soon. It is a laugh and a bit of fun. I hope others may try for the badge too, it is just something to do, and sure why not?
I will put a Midnight Runners honour roll up on my blog with membership numbers if anyone else does the challenge. Keeps things interesting!
So, my membership number #001 is now issued and cemented!
I should probably drop the two zeroes as nobody else will likely try the challenge for membership! 
Who will be next to join the Midnight Runners club?
72
Bonus feature: Play this as you read the activation report. If you wish to do either of course. 
