Black HIll GM/SS-167 (a bit frozen)

I have a huge amount of extra vacations days to use after being un-retired for a few weeks before and after Christmas. Today was a paid holiday as opposed to being a retirement day.

The WX looked brilliant but I wasn’t sure what the West around Luss would be like. This morning at 7am everything was white, lots of ice on cars, in roads and everywhere. The ground was frozen hard too. I just didn’t fancy a 150mile round trip and having to drive up into the hills of Luss on some of the untreated roads. And so the possible uniques will have to wait and I picked a local summit, Black Hill GM/SS-167. As it was there was plenty of ice near the car park road and in the car park. No clouds, brilliant sun, about 2C but the wind was damn cold. Pah!

The route is Thriepmuir Car Park, past the Red Moss nature reserve, up past the fabulous country house through the gate, left follow track to next gate, and on to next gate, left and up the steep bit, left and shortly the boot made track appears. Follow this up to the gate. Through the gate and there is an obvious path through the heather, follow to the hardcore track, left, 100m to the top, minor track on the right 60m to the cairn. Simples. I can nearly do it blindfold. Lots of ice, frozen ground and frost even in the quite strong sun. It was melting a bit on my descent.

It was damn cold so Hagloffs jacket on and I set up where there’s an obvious depression that shelters you from the wind. 5m Decathlon pole, and for a change I thought I’d check the 41ft “random” long wire out. I set this up about 4.5m vertical and the rest sloping to a 1m pole. I used 3 counterpoises as suggested by Heinz HB9BCB. First band was 15m CW with plenty of EU stations all 599. Then I had a bit of pileup and I thought I could hear a PA in there… a bit short for 15m. No dafty, it was Carlos PY2VM in Sao Paulo about 9700km distant. And he was 599 and gave me 559. That will do for 10W into an antenna made from scraps of wire :slight_smile: Then a few US stations appeared until it went quiet. 40m SSB was very quiet then 30m CW. Skip was amazingly short, plenty of G/GW stations all 599 at around 300km, very odd. Finally back on to 15m CW and the time was now post 1400Z and the band was opening to US central states.

I was particularly pleased to work Randy ND0C @ND0C in Mn after not working him for several months. Also in the log for the first time in a while was Manuel EA2DT @EA2DT

15m CW: F, SP, EA, OK, CT, HB9, PY, W4, DL, W2, LY, W0, W3
40m SSB: G
30m CW: GW, OE, G, OM, HB9, DL, LA, I, F, PA

A total of 40 QSOs in 1hr25 mid-week. That will do nicely thank you to all the chasers.

The forecast was it would cloud up and it did and then thinned out. 1h10 to climb to the top, 1hr back to the car. If I could have stayed longer there would have been more DX to the West to work but I was cold and had some taxi services to run.

Looking NW towards Arrochar et al.

Smiling for Brian @G8ADD That fleece is a Mountain Hardwear one from 1998. Yes 26 years old and it still looks almost new. It was pricey but you get what you pay for.

Looking NE to Edinburgh in the sun. All three Forth bridges can be seen from here.

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They should build a fourth.

Weather looked lovely. I’m hoping for similar tomorrow.

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There is only one Forth Bridge. The railway bridge. The others are lesser constructions - the Forth Road Bridge and the Queensferry Crossing.

I managed to sneak on an engineering visit to the Forth Bridge when I was a student. We walked up it, down it and across it under the track bed. I handled the exposure quite well. Then a train rumbled over our heads. Quite the sensation!

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It’s quite impressive sailing under it as well.

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I’ve been under it a couple of times in something that nearly scraped the bottom - the now defunct Rosyth to Zebrugge ferry.

I don’t know what the propagation mode was, but you were audible here ( probably about rst 215 ) on 15m and it was consistent so not aircraft scatter. Thanks for putting up with my CW on 30m, still not happy with that mode, but am thinking of going back to a straight key - it might improve my accuracy… 73 Paul

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It’s loud enough when you stand near the bridge. I often take the hound down to Peatdraught Bay and Hound Point on the Forth Estuary.

Here’s all three bridges at Queensferry. The 1890 Forth Bridge, the 1964 Forth Road Bridge and in the back ground the 2017 Queensferry crossing. My chum Alan GM3PSP was a spotty schoolboy and was invited to the 1964 opening ceremony when Lizzie turned up. As he was still alive 53 years later when the opened the new one, he was invited to that opening ceremony. Not that many people went to both other than him and Queen. The trains make a real racket even from here.

Here’s an attempt at an arty shot from Hound Point.

Just up from Hound Point look back to the bridges. There must be over a kilometre of shells on the sands. As far as you can see TBH.

An arty attempt to capture the colours and varied objects amongst the shells.

More pretentious artyness. Grass at Hound Point.

Trying to keep the dog patient whilst I faffed about was a challenge.

There’s five bridges, Forth Bridge (1890), Kincardine Bridge (1936), Forth Road Bridge (1964), Clackmannanshire Bridge (2008) and Queensferry Crossing (2017).

That would make it the Firth of Fifth. Good name for a song hey Brian (@G8ADD ) :wink:

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What about Stirling Bridge and others? The Forth rises on the eastern slopes of GM/SS-011 Ben Lomond, so it’s probably double figures by the time you get up there.

Bandit country :rofl:

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