Very sorry to hear of your injured ankle hope it mends quickly. Though I’m sure Rod is waiting on you hand and foot
Only local drive-on 2 pointer I can think of is Long Mynd - Pole Bank G/WB-005, you can park alongside the road at the 492m spot height (SO 4168 9419) cross the road and you’re just in the AZ I see you haven’t done it yet this year (unless you have but not yet entered your logs…) There was even a Portaloo adjacent last time I was up there, though that was 18 months ago!
G/WB-006 is on the list every year so travel restrictions and sprained ankles permitting I expect to do it on HF ssb again this year. I will try to remember to make time for 40m. The others are not on the list but G/DC-008 will likely get done if we get to Cornwall sometime - we did it when it was DC-004 so we have lost the “complete”.
Good luck with the rest of the list.
73,
Rod
Well, no; limited gentle exercise is advised in such cases
But I am providing motor transport as and when required.
Titterstone Clee, WB-004 and Brown Clee, WB-002 are also motorable - but require a key and/or permission. This might be good for anyone with permanently restricted mobility but would likely take too much effort to be worthwhile for a short-term problem. As we have already done them this year it is not much help but I mention them for the benefit of anyone who might find it useful.
Hope you will be back on the hills yourself before too long, Paul.
73,
Rod
EDIT; This is also true of several of the SW summits; there was a cluster of Quads on SW-008 on Sunday. Also, being a paraglider apparently provides a fair bit of access.
Thanks Rod, I’m gagging to get out again so the sooner the better! I’m in a “recovery period” between cycles of chemo at the moment so hope to get out and do one or two gentle hills in the next couple of weeks. But getting back up to Scotland to bag a few more uniques will probably have to wait until after the surgery and rehabilitation that will follow. In fact that sounds like a pretty good target for 2022
Also my 51st Birthday. I climbed Lochnagar for my 50th. Had a brilliant day. Spoke to people on the radio, however I was officially breaking lockdown rules, so no SOTA points.
I will endeavour to be on a nice hill on 2nd March this year.
My goal this year is at least 4 CW QSOs for each summit activated. I already failed at that last week pulling out the HT after 2 CW QSOs and 30 minutes of no response on 20m (evening activation) except for that activation I’ll stick to my goal. Last weekend 40m was solid across the band with contesters as was yesterday and today.
The last two days I have had two failed CW activations with only 2 QSOs on each attempt.
I often only have limited time in the evening to activate and with the contests on 40m this weekend coupled with my 3w rig the chance for success is small, at least for me as a relatively new CW activator!
So in summary I agree with you, successful CW activating is NOT easy!
I enjoy seeing this challenge met as my skill improves. I also need to get a 30m antenna.
Hi Erik,
When I found that my CW activator score (about 600) was way behind my all-mode score (1100), I adopted the approach of not moving to phone modes until I did have 4 CW QSOs, that enabled me to qualify on CW even if I didn’t make a single contact on phone. And not surprisingly this resulted in a “CW MG” qualification after several years of this approach. I used a multi-worksheet spreadsheet, one for each year, to track my CW activations. This is due to the standard activator report not correctly identifying the activations with 4 or more contacts on the selected mode.
Hope it works for you too.
It’s a great band. It’s probably the nearest you’ll get to 24 hour usability for SOTA activating (if you’re minded towards campover SOTA), and seems to enjoy the perfect balance of space (you can usually find a clear QRG, contest free etc) and activity (usually seems pretty busy).
Plus it supports my two favourite modes for SOTA - CW and FT8/4.
For several years I used a homemade halfwave dipole, which is fine. But as I grew to really like the band, and wanted to explore its DX potential, I built a quarterwave vertical with elevated groundplane, which fits on my 10m Travelmast. Using 5 watts from an FT-817, I have had 30m SOTA QSOs with VK, ZL, JA etc with this antenna, and recently DP1POL (Neumayer Station III, Antarctica).
I’d say a 30m vertical with groundplane was the best bet for SOTA DX S2S at the present time. Anyone for a 30m DX S2S event / session?
I see you haven’t done it yet this year (unless you have but not yet entered your logs…) There was even a Portaloo adjacent last time I was up there, though that was 18 months ago!
