I’m glad you both had some success on your Mull trip just a pity about the dreich weather.
All the timings for your activations didn’t suit me being at work but checking the contour track from most of Mull to my work QTH I could have made the trip quite easily on 2m FM. But it would have been too difficult to try sneak in a quick chase as car is parked right next to office. I only managed to catch Viki MM6BWA once on Arran although I can see every summit from work. Hey Ho!
Safe journey home and maybe next time.
73 Neil
P.S. I hear the sunshine is coming back to Bonny Scotland.
Well done lads (and associated hicth-hikers [ticks])
Unfortunatley I WAS around on all your activations but the skip was too long - so the fall-back was 2M CW which again was marginal to no-go (though thanks Paul for 3.666 MHz contact so early yesterday [zilch on 60M whilst you were working G’s], you were a good signal but I was plagued with a S7 local QRM - when you are back up I’ll make sure that I’ve this 80M problem sorted) with but thanks for the new ones that I was able to bag.
I mentioned the ‘shack’ at the home QTH is in transit, but I was able to cobble up a temporary set-up in anticipation - but hey-hoy the sky decided not to play - for me
And haste ye back to Mull for some potential Completes? (you can see a bit of self-interest here )
And safe trip back to G-land. Just mind any - oops meant ticks that are attempting to cross the M74
Sorry that we did not hook up on 2m from many summits Jack. I tried self-spotting, but the service was very erratic for both text and Internet alerts. A bit like the few paths that there are. … now you see them, now you don’t. Several summits were screened so the take off was poor, but some should have produced results, but failed to do so. I tried both horizontal and vertical polarisation, sometimes slant. Managed to work Viki and Rod from SI-091 and 085.
Hope you manage to pick up the missing summits for those Completes in due course.
many thaks for your advice.
I hope to activate at least one summit on Mull. But mainly we will enjoy the coastline, the wildlife and the culture (Iona is a MUST).
Did you activate SI-003?
I doubt if I can make a agreement with my xyl hiking up to Ben More.
We will see!
No, we didn’t climb Ben More this time. We planned 14 summits and achieved 10 of them - heavy rain stopped play on some days. We reckon at least two more visits to activate the lot, including Ulva and Gometra. There are plenty of hills to activate in such a small area.
Hope you have a good time on the island. We certainly enjoyed our time there. Maybe manage to work you.
I also hope to do GM/SI-003. I have been to the summit before, back in 2001 before SOTA had been launched.
I’d bought the newly introduced Yaesu FT817 to take along to Mull but it sat in the car whilst I walked up the hill - I had no reason to take it with me!
Visiting Mull again in August, will be taking radio gear, but it is a family holiday, so radio time will be limited. I very much want to have another go at sea fishing so I have to factor in some time for that too!
Mull is such a beautiful place, and I agree, Iona is a must! We packed a picnic and took the quick journey across to Iona to eat our lunch while admiring the view back to Mull -
My abiding memory is our first trip to Mull in 1983. Camping in a two person tent, in the drizzle,in July. Did that heck as like stop the midges! Our real souvenir photo of that trip is of my XYL (G4IAQ), holding up the mast on a portable activation of Iona, with the Abbey in the background. Had we known that she was expecting our first daughter at the time, she might have declined to do it!
Thanks Neil, we had a wonderful time despite the weather and poor conditions
Sorry the timings didn’t suit you, it would have been great to have made a bunch of contacts with you - Gerald would have particularly relished a bit more 2m action! Unfortunately we were very much driven by circumstance on this expedition we’ll try and aim for weekends/bank holidays in future
Take care hope to catch you soon
73 de Paul G4MD
PS I assume you heard about the sunshine from the feller that told you your cheque was in the post
Thanks Jack. Last of my hangers on (I hope) discovered and removed last night - making eight in total for the expedition. A new high for me but not one I relish :-s I must be a lot tastier than Gerald
Thanks also for being there - I know a lot of chasers were sat in their shacks extremely frustrated at being unable to copy me/us. Radio conditions were extremely mixed to say the least. I did try 80m (in some cases in desperation!) from most summits, but generally the band was dead as the proverbial dodo and the inability to self-spot in many cases didn’t help.
A definite goal on the to-do list is activating all of the Mull summits so “we’ll be back”! Will get the phone/self spotting issues sorted for then and hopefully the sky will play
I first went to Mull about then - stayed in the Sheilings at Craignure. Weather/midge experience very similar :-s
Abiding memories of this trip? Probably the banks of primroses that we found everywhere, followed by the carpets of bluebells and the exquisite little orchids that hid themselves in the sward on the hills. And the sight of the eagles soaring just above us on a couple of summits… And the numerous deer we saw… And the chorus of cuckoos that accompanied every ascent!
And then there were the ticks… which deserves a thread of it’s own…
I got away very lightly with just one tick found yesterday to add to the total of four midge bites from the only time that they made their appearance - as we loaded the car on Monday morning ISTR. By GM standards, we have done very well overall - no horizontal driving sleet as I predicted in my initial post. Mind you, the hail on Friday morning got me worried - oh for all of ten seconds…
As a follow up, we had a lovely time on Mull. I didn’t get around to doing any SOTA activating but I did operate for a couple of evenings. Got spotted on the DX cluster at one point for EU-008 on 30m, it was quite fun!
The best thing is the low noise, it’s amazing just how quiet 40m sounds compared to at home.
I’d really recommend the Isle of Mull for a radio trip, there’s plenty of SOTA summits and even if you just operate from your accommodation, SOTA chasing should be fantastic. The main crossing from Oban to Craignure is now served by two ferries during the summer, MV Coruisk and MV Isle of Mull were the two vessels sailing the route, crossing in the Sound of Mull. The ferries are very good value too, due to something called RET, the prices have been massively reduced. Last year it cost £125 for a return sailing for one car, two adults, a child and an infant (infant free), whilst this year it cost just £43.30 for the same.
There’s plenty to interest the family and xyl, lovely beaches, retail therapy, eagle spotting, fishing, horse riding etc etc…
When in Rome… Highland pony ride, my steed was called Erray Muscari, apparently he was thirsty!
“Road Equivalent Tariff” - it is an Eu subsidy for remote islands that charges the ferry journey at the comparable cost of driving (if it were possible) - Shetland is excluded for some reason, I believe!
Not sure if it is EU subsidised?, but certainly paid for out of the Scottish Government’s ‘coffers’.
And a great boost to the Scottish islands - even to wee Millport (Isle of Cumbrae) which Anne and I visited recently and the locals say they have never been so busy.No SOTA summits but a superb view from the top of the island.
I hadn’t heard of RET before I attempted to book our Mull sailing online. I punched in all the details on the online form and when the price came back at £43, I thought I’d made a mistake! I rang the Calmac office and it was confirmed that the price was correct.
It was still too costly for me to take a car to Coll at the end of July though, so I took my bike instead - presumably as it’s free to ride a bike on the road then the RET of a bike must also be free!
But the point I was making is that it’s cheaper and more convenient than ever to get to the very beautiful Scottish Isles and yet they are still very peaceful.
This was THE campsite on Coll in July - I counted a maximum of 4 tents at any one time! (The cute blue one is mine)
Yes Colin, another beautiful island when the wx is with you (or indeed not?). And I wonder if we could work something into the RET for midges to ‘get-on-their-(motor)bike’. But hey wait a minute that would mean an invasion of the mainland? Not such good idea - we’ve got enough of the wee blighters - hi!
)
- oops meant ticks that are attempting to cross the M74
