Today was one of those days where you understand the value, or the madness of this fantastic game that is Sota.
I left Roma with my friend Guido to climb and activate Monte Giano I/LZ-017 a nice summit 1820m high. with over 3 hours of climbing and 1000 meters of altitude difference.
There was also a “political” task to do: today in Italy is the “day of the liberation” from Fascism and on this mountain there is still a very ugly writing praising Mussolini and therefore we wanted to climb and pass this ugly writing to celebrate our liberation.
The day was quite unstable in terms of weather and in fact big clouds appeared towards the end of the path towards the top, I just had time to mount the antenna, make 6 qso in 20 mt. ssb and a very heavy rain started to descend. I took everything apart and we started going down. The feel is quite long, during the descent the rain came and went… and we often found ourselves in the low clouds. Finally we came back down, soaking wet… but happy.
The meaning of those six QSOs for me is the very meaning of SOTA, six quick voices that appeared on the top of the mountain to greet me and pass me a quick report. Only six but they are worth a hundred. Thank to this six chaser ! @F4WBN@EA4BQG@SP6KEP@GI0AZA@G3VXJ@IZ0DLE
It is certainly mad, probably an obsession, is the best fun available in this hobby, hugely rewarding. All the better if you can climb to better heights than such misguided slogans ever would have taken you. Well done.
Still European I am, despite no QSO yesterday with Andrea, something which I constantly remind the 52% who voted to leave, and in the final analysis, who lost such a lot, especially our freedom of movement, amongst many other things.
We still have practicing poiliticians like Mussolini (many have gone silent though now), in our country. It was these people and the UK newspapers who have turned the UK into a very sad outlyer, through lies and false assumptions they made during the Brexit campaign of 2016. Sorry but I had to say this. If the powers that be remove my message, so be it…
Our reflector is social media of a sort, not a radio transmission, and there is far worse written on social media every hour, of every day, of every week. I have so many European friends, most of them who I got to know through our fantastic branch of the hobby, which is one of the main reasons why I regret that we are no longer a member of the Union, as we were before.
I was notified on Monday that from June 6th I will have to pay a daily roaming charge to use my phone in the EU. Also banks in the EU can now charge UK customers whatever charges they want for accessing ATMs. When we in the EU the charges were capped to the same amounts as the bank’s own customers.
Still I have Blue passport and I do have to queue in the “everyone else” passport queues so things must be better.
I think you mean you have a black passport Andy (They are more black than blue and are printed in Tczew, Poland, good Brexit decision!). My EU crimson one has a few years to run yet.
When I am forced to have the back one I will be getting one of these covers for it:
Possible tip Barry if you have a backup phone, spare SIM2 or are prepared to remove your usual SIM and replace it temporarily with the 1p mobile one.
When I renewed my fibre broadband contract with Vodafone last year the package includes my main mobile. As it was a new contract I lost the free roaming, but the price of the package was so competive with the broadband and calls included I didn’t want to lose the deal.
I use a firm called 1p mobile who are on the EE/BT network on my back up spare Android phone. I pay £10 for 3 months service but I rarely use it, occasionaly when I am activating and I have an EE network but not a Vodafone one I use the phone, or in an emergency - not needed for that so far. As a result of the lack of us the credit has built up over time to between £50 and £60. You still need to pay the £10 per quarter though… The cost if the phone is used in the EU is still 1p per minute, 1p per MB data, 1p per text so I use that phone when I am on a holiday or SOTA trip instead of my main phone which would cost me a lot more.
I have no commercial connection with 1p mobile - other providers are available.
Yes, it was a great job when SOTA Italy got their summits list properly fixed a few years ago. It was not good when I visited Tuscany in 2015. Very good now - congratulations!
Thanks Armin
