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 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.