My wife and I are planning a raid on the rarely activated Fisherfield Six round of Munros over the next three days. I’ve posted alerts with the days and approximate times we plan to be on the summits. I’ll be on CW but will try SSB too as time and battery capacity allows.
I doubt we’ll have phone signal so I’ll be relying on the RBN for spotting. I don’t know what it does when there is more than one alert posted for the same op on the same day. I will transmit my summit references and would be super grateful for any spots chasers can post - especially if the spots from the RBN turn out to be incorrect.
Richard you can post a wildcard alert such as GM/NS-0?? and you get get spotted on that wildcard summit ref. People will then actually have to listen for you sending the summit ref
You can put one alert up for the whole day and tell RBNhole to monitor for many hours around the time, use a wildcard ref and then put time window extension commands in the comment field.
S+10 will extend the valid window for 10hrs past the alert time.
S-5 will extend the valid window for 5 hrs before the alert time.
Using those you could put one alert for say 900Z with the ref GM/NS-0?? with a comment
“S+8 NS-021 then NS-013 times depend on heat/WX etc.”
The S+ and S- must use capital letters or it wont work.
Each alert has a window - which Andy has shown how you can extend it in either direction. By default it is -1 hour/+3 hours from the alerted time. Once an RBN spot is received, if there are more than one alert with an open window, it picks the closest alerted time. So, if you alert for 12 and for 1, and an RBN node hears you at 12:27, that should be spotted as the alert for 12 (within 3 hours after the alert). If it arrives instead at 12:31, it would spot the 1 o’clock activation (within in hour prior to the alert). These times are based on when RBNHole gets the spot, not when spot arrives at the RBN (which might lag by up to a minute)
We just activated Ruadh Stac Mor (GM/NA-021). The WX is much hotter than expected, and the going has been hard. We are changing our plans and probably won’t make the round trip now. Still intend to activate A’ Mhaighdean (GM/NS-013) tomorrow though. Alerts updated accordingly.
Oh, and it turns out phone signal is strong up here, which is good to know!
You called me just as I was noticing your spot on Sotawatch and thinking I should QSY You were a strong signal to me. Hope you had as good a day on the hill as we did!
We camped on the summit plateau of A’ Mhaighdean (GM/NS-013), and activated it twice, once on Sunday evening and again on Monday morning as advertised.
Gerald, you’re right about the difficulty - it was hard going with full packs! Worth it for the view and the summit ambience though. I will post some photos from a real computer next week.
We returned the way we came rather than tackling another four Munros. When we reached the bothy at Shenegal (which is not to be used except in emergencies currently due to Covid-19) we decided we couldn’t face another night camping with the midges, so we hiked the additional 7 km back out to the road. We managed to find a B&B in Ullapool, where we are now scoffing a giant breakfast and plotting our next move…
I have an funny story about that… we met a couple on Sgurr Fiona late one afternoon, heading towards the summit when we were heading down. Said “hi” and passed on our way. Two days later we met them in Ullapool on the sea front. After they saw us they got lost and ended up with an unexpected night out sleeping “at the foot of a tree”. They saidf they had walked past a “farm” with someone standing outside but were too scared to ask for help for fear of upsetting the locals. Of course the “farm” was Sheneval and the occupants would I am sure have helped them.
They had only walked in the Lake District before and were surprised at the nature of the NW Highlands!
Brilliant! Long walk with backpacking gear. Well done!
You were a strong signal to me. Hope you had as good a day on the hill as we did!