145 Alive Saturday 12th April 2025

From 1200-1500 BST this Saturday. A great opportunity to get out and get involved in 2m activity from a SOTA summit.

Here’s a map of confirmed net controllers.


145 Alive Net Controllers

I will be running a net from Glas Maol GM/ES-012, the most northerly net in the UK. My allocated frequency is 145.525Mhz.

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For 145 Alive I plan to be in IO95AG square on the Simonside Hills, NOT a Sota. Allocated QRG 145.450MHz. I will be running 50W to 2 stacked HB9CVs. I hope the 2m propagation Gods are happy on Saturday.
Have fun
David G0EVV

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Two staked HB9CV’s? How? Whats the aprox. Gain? TNX. Very interesting.

Jorge, check this post from David.

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I should be QRV on Burnhope Seat G/NP-003 for this. It’s not the world’s greatest 2m summit but should be workable by a few.

Apparently true LOS to Burnhope Seat.

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I could hear Fraser on Glas Maol at a scratchy 41 on Burnhope Seat, about 250kms. Would have been workable but there was another 145 Alive station on the same frequency so not possible to try for a QSO. :frowning:

David G0EVV was a very strong 59+ but he was LOS :slight_smile:

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Thanks to all involved in this event, 2m activity is rare on the South coast, unless the monthly UKAC? I spent an very enjoyable hour with Dave G1NNR/P in the chair, probably my first 2m FM net for almost 40 years !!

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I lasted two hours on top of Glas Maol GM/ES-012, before the strong southerly got too much for me. Glas Maol has a great shelter, but it’s a very popular summit, so I kept well clear and used a short low stone wall 150m to the south.

Anyway, we got a great net going. I had Denis @MW0CBC and Simon @GM4JXP close by on GM/CS-030 and GM/CS-077 respectively.

Around 36 stations joined the net, with me hearing/working 30 of them. I had 7 S2S along the way.

Afterwards, met up with Denis and Dawn at the SOTA cafe in Braemar. A fine end to the day. :slightly_smiling_face:

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From Ben Gulabin I managed 17 qsos with 6 S2S. The only annoying thing was I couldn’t get a 4G signal unless I stood on the actual summit in the stiff breeze - I was hunkered down a few metres lower, so couldn’t join in with the Whatsapp banter. My only visitors all day were a young couple with a lab.
After Alive finished, I put up the 40/20 dipole and worked a few UK and EU chasers, giving my new Micro PA50+ amplifier its first outing on a hill. Manuel, EA2DT was last in the log.

WX was great to start with and then started to cloud over after midday.
The view looking up the A93 on the walk up

Some nice views from the top, a lot less cloudy than on my first visit with Fraser in 2022.

The Cairnwell in the foreground

Looking North at Carn Bhinnein


There were signs of recent wildfires and the arrival of rain today will be welcome

A big thank you to Fraser for running the net.

Equipment: KX3, UR3LMZ transverter, 5el HB yagi, 40/20 dipole, Spiderbeam 7m mast, Micro PA50+ hf amp.

73 Simon

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Hi All, bit off thread but still Radio from a summit. I was on Simonside near the Sota, Tosson.
The 2HB9CVs worked well but I had a faulty mike plugs so just 6Watts from handheld to feeder by bodged connection. 22 stations worked but the station on Cringle Moor was too strong to enable a QSO with you Fraser. 3 Sotas chased, thanks gents.
David
G0EVV

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That’s not bad, with just a handheld. I had my ft-60 as a backup too, thankfully not required.

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Same issue for us Andy; we tried listening for any DX (including @MM0EFI) on 2m, but it seemed full with locals. I did hear one EI3 station briefly, before he was blocked out by QRM too.

I managed a S2S on 2m with @MW0PDV (thanks Paul), before switching to 20m as Nic was keen to work her usual set of chasers on that band. Plus it was surprisingly cold in the wind on Saturday…

73, Simon

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Thanks for another S2S, I only realised we had met earlier this year (near the Ponda Rosa) when I was uploading my log. I managed 3 S2S’s and 19 QSO in total on 2m, in 24 minutes before going QRT to clear the frequency for 145 Alive. The QRM was a small price to pay :grinning:

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What amused me was the guy who was on the same frequency as Fraser and was occasionally calling CQ but mainly moaning at Fraser and telling him to QSY. I don’t think he was clued up enough to realise Fraser was another 145Alive station.

What’s the expression, YOLO: you only live once. I don’t know about you but I don’t have enough minutes left on Earth to fight with another station on who should QSY. Sure I’ll tell people the frequency is in use and ask them to move but if that doesn’t work in a few minutes then I will QSY rather than waste the minutes I do have left. I suggested to him he should maybe QSY but he was adamant it was “HIS FREQUENCY” and he wasn’t QSYing.

Now it’s not bloody rocket science to realise what was happening and someone who can walk and chew gum at the same time would see the problem and would find an alternate frequency to operate on and would call CQ on the first frequency and give the alternate frequency to any responders , they could both QSY and work with fewer interruptions. But no, he banged away moaning about the GM station on HIS FREQUENCY. I think the expression fin-de-cloche is accurate here. What a complete :clown_face:

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But enough to comment on here!

It’s the same reason I can’t be bothered to email the phantom chasers or those who log the wrong summit.

But I’m being paid to comment on here whilst the project is compiling :wink:

Many of my phantom chasers are people who had their mouse above the correct line in SOTAwatch and then clicked at the same time SOTAwatch updated so they logged the wrong station because they didn’t notice the screen update. I’ve found lots these and they vanish a few days later when the chaser realises the problem.

Compile just finished and now the program is throwing a SIGSEGV :frowning:

Listened for you yesterday. No 2m copy from Morrone to my QTH, unfortunately. Same for Simon @GM4JXP

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Thank you for listening. I wasn’t expecting much on 2m and I also wondered if the radio masts might desense my Baofeng.

HF was pants again with a geomagnetic storm and a radio blackout. Still managed a reasonable number of contacts and 2 S2S. 40m was the band that worked best which surprised me.

I was intrigued with two of the three radio masts. The EE/Hutchison mast appeared to be mounted on a big metal frame and just weighted down with concrete blocks i.e. with no foundations. The other was a small mast for some microwave dishes attached to a small trailer but bolted to the rock.

The Braemar MRT have a comms mast up there. The third one you saw?