A lot worse things going on in the world - jobs worth no doubt!! Live and let live I say!
I have to use earphones with CW anyway so I can hear those 329 and 429 chasers above even a bit of wind noise. Last time I activated in a gale I couldn’t hear them at all [with the tent noise] so next time it’s that windy I’m going to take my Bose noise-cancelling BT headphones with an audio lead to my rig.
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Using headphones is good practice, but why do you think that CW is less impacting?
I think Guru meant that using headphones makes CW less impacting. The sound of Morse code from the loudspeaker can be heard further away and might be more irritating to passers-by than the sound of voices.
But CW has the advantage that there’s no activator’s voice as there would be with SSB or FM modes.
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Change your breakfast 
Seriously, CW tends to attract people who are intrigued. If they hear voices and they are older they think CB. It’s scary now how many people do not know of amateur radio.
Only once had someone who seemed annoyed I was on the summit of Beinn Mhic Mhonaidh. I wasn’t making much noise TBH. He was furious as he finished his ascent and walked up to me and moaned that someone else was sat near the cairn and went on about how you should be able to get peace and quiet on a Corbett. I offered to turn everything off whilst he had his piece at the summit but he wandered off muttering to himself. As he never answered me about stopping operating, I stopped the CW VOX working and left the keyer calling CQ on repeat with no RF going out hoping to see if the noise would make his head assplode. If he had said yes, I’d have stopped and taken more photos as the ones I have are rubbish for the sweat invested in climbing it.
Normally people are fascinated both with HF working the world or uwaves on same frequency as Wifi going hundreds of km when they can’t get wifi to fill their houses. I guess the moral in his case is don’t climb steep Corbetts if your Michael Miles are giving you gyp.
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That sense of entitlement is more common than one might think but most don’t vocalise it. It reminds of the photo-taking woman who, being annoyed to find anyone already at the summit before she got there [in this case, me], said that they are a ‘summit hogger’.
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I have to use headphones with CW in the quiet shack. I need the sound inside my head to have any chance of decoding it.
I’m always cautious of making any noise on a quiet summit - unless I’m alone - because I enjoy those rare moments these days when you can hear no human activity at all. I assume others do too.
The only complaint I’ve had was from a lady who arrived beside me, looked at the antenna and equipment, and said crossly “well I didn’t expect to see that here” showed no interest in what I was doing and stalked off.
Overwhelmingly, though, interaction has been curiosity and friendly conversation.
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I’ve been lucky. The only complaint I’ve ever had was “haven’t you got your 4 contacts yet?” Fair enough, it was a bit chilly
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And it was your xyl, wansn’t it?
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Andy @G8CPZ answered the question for me in his following post, but I’ll respond anyway. Yes, I consider working CW less impacting than voice modes because the operator remains totally silent. Thanks to working CW with earbuds, I’ve had the pleasure to witness wild life righ in front of me while I was making QSOs. This has happenned in at least 3 occasions and it would have never happenned should I had been shouting out loud to the microphone, as I usually do.
73,
Guru
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This! 
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Wild life, yeah, me too - a clegg (horsefly) determined to bite my bare legs whilst I was trying to key.
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And she still is 
though some winter SOTA trips test her endurance (with me, not the walk)
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Oh, well. When I wrote my post I was about to add an “insects excluded” note because I knew there would be people referring to them as wild life, which they actually are, but less enjoyable than seeing a female wild boar with her 4 little piggies or a big male wild boar (about 100Kg) with impressive teeth or having a beautiful little weasel coming close to me to see what I was doing.
The wild boars may seem scary to someone, but I never felt scared of them at all, rather delighted with the privilege of seeing them so close to me in their own environment.
73,
Guru
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I thought that was probably your point. You may find this odd, but in my experience animals and birds tend not panic at the sound of a human voice, though often they will pause and look. It is movement that causes them to flee. I remember one occasion when a vole was scurrying around my feet and at one point actually ran over my foot. I called it a silly b****r when it did that, but it ignored my voice as it had my operating - but it was off like a streak of lightning when I reached for my camera (probably looking for its agent!) Another occasion I was looking over a gate at the view while talking to my XYL when a muntjac deer ambled past, and again only ran when one of us moved. For me it is one of the regular pleasures of SOTA when my stillness emboldens wildlife to show itself, and I only operate on phone.
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Sounds like the plot of an episode of Scooby Doo. All we need is some “pesky kids” 
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Gerald and I have had a few… foremost in my mind is on Cuilags, GM/SI-097 on Hoy where having struggled up the incredibly long and steep heather-covered flank of the hill we were greeted with the severe displeasure of a couple who had already laid claim to the summit and thought it disgraceful that anyone else should dare climb it… and that was before we set up our stations! I’m sure Gerald better remembers details of a few more…
73 Paul G4MD
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Well surprisingly few actually. In respect of the Cuilags incident I recall the phrase being, “we thought we’d have the summit to ourselves”. I was tempted to ask what they thought they’d get up to, but thought better of it.
The only other significant incident was on Y Garn GW/NW-004 when a hill runner started gobbing off about technology in the wilderness. It was lunch time and there were at least 20 people on the summit at the time and with one accord they all told him to shut up and go away… which he actually did, thank goodness. There have been a couple of instances when people have thought we were leaving our antenna installations at the summit, which were easy to counter.
The flip side to this is the level of interest generally that has been expressed by members of the public. Several times I’ve been asked to take my headphones off and turn the volume up so the other side of the QSO could be heard. A guy on Great Gable G/LD-005 was especially interested, as was a lady on Seatallan G/LD-025 who asked me if she could join me in the summit shelter and when I suggested that I move out to finish off my activation would have none of it, saying she wanted to listen to the conversation.
.
As for wildlife, I’ve found birds in particular very inquistive. My activation of Shobden Hill G/WB-017 stands out as I recall having to turn the volume up in my headphones as I couldn’t hear the incoming audio because of the chattering of the Long-Tailed Tits in the bushes around me.
73, Gerald
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If I wasn’t so polite (and wanting to preserve the good image of our hobby) I would have been tempted to throw that remark back at them by saying “Yeah, so were we”.
No doubt standing there wearing his hi-tech running clothes and running shoes with mobile phone in his back pocket. What a hypocrite!
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