A quicky on Arthur`s Seat SS-272

Activation Reports
1

My car needed a service and a work colleague got me a good deal at a garage run by a friend. The only problem was it was the far side of Edinburgh. I decided I’d have a day of retail therapy “down the smoke” whilst my car was being pampered.

What I noticed was an alert by Jirka OK2BDF for Arthur’s Seat SS-272 the same day. This summit is in the middle of Edinburgh and was only a 20min bus ride from where my car was going to be. A plan emerged…

Car dropped off and wallet prepared for the inevitable pillaging that would happen later, I got the bus into Edinburgh. I was actually early compared to the alert time so I sat on a pavement cafe in the sun having a coffee. Hang on, sun? Scotland? Yes, it was a belter of a day. It was already hot and sunny by 900am! After that I meandered down past the building which should have cost £40million but cost £400million. Funny, politicians had no problem awarding themselves 10x the funds to build their own parliament building. Should have all been lined up and shot for wasting my taxes.

Anyway, past there and wow there’s a mountain in the carpark! I wandered across the back of Holyrood Palace and started up the path that runs under Salisbury Crags. Apart from the fact I was but one of the thousands of people wandering along it was a great morning. The crags are really quite impressive, not the height, but the length of nearly vertical rock wall. It was hot I whilst I had decent trainers on (Scarpa with Goretex and a grippy aggressive sole) I was not dressed for exertion in jeans and shirt. I took it easy and was in no rush.

After the crags you have 3 choices, through Hunter’s Bog which is mainly flat and around the back of the summit, or the gentle up hill route or the steep uphill route. I took the gentle uphill route which climbs gently in the undergrowth and keeps you out of the fairly ferocious (for Scotland) Sun. This turns and doubles back and meets the path that climbs from the far end of Hunter’s Bog. I wandered along amongst the vast herds of tourists, never have you heard so many different langauges being spoken. Or seen so many people climbing a volcano in the wrong shoes!

It’s hard to go wrong, just follow any path going up especially if it’s full of people! It wasn’t long before it was a bit steeper but I could see the give-away signs of SOTA… a fishing pole sticking up in the air! A minute later I was sat by Jirka. He was QRV on 40m. Jirka speaks little English but he speaks a helluva lot more English than I do Czech. I showed him my international SOTA passport, a baseball cap with a SOTA logo and my callsign embroidered on. He smiled. When his pileup finished we smiled and shook hands and tried as we could to talk. Jirka then spoke the international ham language of friendship… he past his key over to me and spotted me on SOTAwatch. I worked about 8 stations and as soon as that was cleared, I stopped.

I thanked Jirka and left him to activate 30m whilst I climbed the last few metres to the top and took my turn in the queue to touch the trig point. Yes, it’s that busy. I had a chat to Ken GM0AXY and Christine GM4YMM on 2m and then walked back by a different route. Back at ground level I wandered the 20mins or so it takes to get from Arthur’s Seat to the Royal Mile and treated myself to a nice lunch and pint of ice cold foaming brew. It was now about 22C, clouding up a little and very, very humid. The beer did wonders. Just as I finished lunch I got the message my car was ready and the final cost was not such a pillaging of the wallet as first thought.

A splendid day in the sun and tourists, a quick activation, a nice lunch and the car not needing a service for another 20000miles. Looking on the computerised maps, I have walked a total of 8.7km and climbed 362m (includes Edinburgh as well as Arthur’s Seat) which is not a bad walk.

Thanks to Jirka for letting me use his station in my own back yard!

EDIT: Looking at the photos reminded me of the superb bonus gained on this activation. Walking back for lunch I found a genuine 1860’s Penfold Octagonal Postbox marked VR for Victoria Regina. I never knew there was a Victorian postbox in Edinburgh.

Andy
MM0FMF

2

In reply to MM0FMF:
Hi Andy,

Enjoyed reading that one. Your efforts were rewarded with an international meeting with a like minded person and to try out his rig. What could be better and who needs a common language? I’m certain that this would have left Jirka feeling very welcome indeed.

Hope the garage didn’t sting you too much!
73, John.

3

In reply to MM0FMF:

Pleased to work you on the summit yesterday. I assumed that you had pre-arranged to meet Jirka with the idea of one holding the mast and the other keying, then having a swap over, so as to avoid guying. Obviously Jirka had it all sorted on his own account. All the more pleasing that it was almost unplanned and to be offered the key to make a few contacts.

73, Gerald G4OIG

4

“a work colleague got me a good deal at a garage run by a friend. … I decided I’d have a day of retail therapy ] whilst my car was being pampered.”

This is the sort of logic my wife appreciates.

5

In reply to G3CWI:

In the end I only spent money on several nice coffees, lunch and an all day bus ticket. I did buy some biscuits from Ikea on the way back for the office. They’ll end up being expensed if I can be bothered, I think the £2.95 they cost is not worth grief and stress of the company expenses website unless I’ve got a proper claim to submit!

Andy
MM0FMF

6

In reply to MM0FMF:

I did buy some biscuits from Ikea on the way back
for the office. They’ll end up being expensed if I can be bothered, I
think the £2.95 they cost is not worth grief and stress of the
company expenses website unless I’ve got a proper claim to submit!

SOTA on an expense account! I’ve seen it all now …

:slight_smile:

73 de G3NYY

7

In reply to G3NYY:

Its taken me all day to stop laughing at the title, dont start me again!

Brian G8ADD

8

In reply to G3NYY:

The biscuits are a smoke screen Walt. Further down the claim is an item that is coded FT-817ND. :wink:

73, Gerald G4OIG

9

In reply to G4OIG:

That takes too long to type, more likely its code is KX3!

Brian G8ADD

10

In reply to G8ADD:

I thought items in excess of 1000GBP needed special clearance. :wink:

73, Gerald G4OIG

11

In reply to G4OIG:

With his computer skills that is no problem!

Brian G8ADD

12

In reply to G8ADD:

I could get away with an FT-5000DX and nobody would question it. I’d just say 1x FT-5000DX USB3.1 verification test set from W&S £4995.00. But £2.95 for a box of Ikea Harveschokoladebiskyomnomnom (well they have a silly name) would requite thousands of signatures.

Such is that madness of modern company expense systems, spend huge amounts of effort to make sure someone doesn’t buy ten bob’s worth of snacks but don’t question anything technical sounding and expensive :frowning:

Andy
MM0FMF

13

In reply to MM0FMF:
Hey Andy, I will be in Edinburgh in late August and hope to visit Arthurs seat. I have permission to operate from the rangers of the park, but would like to pick your brains re the suitable spots to operate from. Part of the permission I was given was that I agreed not to poke anything on the ground like tent pegs etc. Are there sufficient objects that I could strap a squid pole to act as a centre support for a dipole up there?
I have a free standing vertical antenna I could bring, but it would be a bit more inconvenient than the light weight dipole and squid pole. Your guidance is appreciated.
Just read another post about Arthurs seat (in a thread I started a while ago) which suggests that there are hand rails with vertical supports suitable to strap a squid pole to. It just gets a bit busy up there with all the tourists etc.

14

In reply to VK3XL:

Just shy of the summit is a fence. You can lash the pole to the uprights and there was plenty of space for a 40m inv-V dipole when I bumped into Jirka OK2BDF last week.

I’ll post some pics tonight and you can see what the main problem will be… 1000’s of tourists wandering about.

Andy
MM0FMF

15

In reply to MM0FMF:

… 1000’s of tourists wandering about.

Precisely the antithesis of what I look for on a summit. I can’t say I will be rushing to activate the summit, even for a Complete! :slight_smile:

73, Gerald G4OIG

16

In reply to G4OIG:

Do it as a smash and grab on two metres FM and move on to something with more savour! I must admit the only time I was there I had no thought of ham radio, but being able to explore the skeleton of a volcano was fascinating. There is a book devoted to it but I think it is severely out of date now!

Brian G8ADD

17

In reply to G8ADD:

on two metres FM

ROTFLMAO! Edinburgh… 2m FM… You will get 2 contacts, 1 from Ken GM0AXY and 1 from Christine GM4YMM and then I hope you have a big battery because you’ll be calling for a long time :slight_smile:

Andy
MM0FMF

18

In reply to G8ADD:
How does a book about an extinct volcano go out of date… surely it is a relative thing 100.000 year old volcano vs a 20 year old book I dont see the problem here

19

In reply to G4OIG:
My main motivation for activating this summit is that we have a summit called Arthurs seat here in VK3 also. I am sure it is not as grand as the one near Edinburgh but I would still like to activate both.

20

In reply to VK3XL:

In reply to G8ADD:
How does a book about an extinct volcano go out of date… surely it
is a relative thing 100.000 year old volcano vs a 20 year old book I
dont see the problem here

From the topographic POV the book wouldn`t go out of date, of course - except for the odd rockfall, I think there was a big one ten years or so ago, but the book is more like forty years old and the understanding of both the plate tectonic setting and the chemistry of the magma differentiation has made great strides since then. Incidentally, the volcano is about 350 million years old and was buried in later sediments, but the soft stuff was scraped away by glacier action in the Ice Age leaving a beautiful exposure of the several vents, sills and dykes.

Brian G8ADD