Took a day off work for myself for a change and decided I try out an activation. I picked Bennachie, GM/ES-061, for the bonus 
, plus the option of a short route up and down as I still had to make sure I was back to pick up the kids from school.
I started from the back, and took the direct route up. Took about 40 minutes to get to the summit, which was quicker than I was expecting. The weather was fine, overcast but dry, until I got to the top when I entered the cloud and wind.
I had brought my boafeng to try 2m but I hadnāt told anyone so it was probably a bit too optimistic. I shouldāve called @2M0WNA ahead of time! I found a nice outcrop to shelter behind that was in front of the summit, and setup the pole and radio on a rock. I had a little nook to crouch in and there I started to see if I could make any contacts.
The mast was installed vertically at the startā¦
Radio-wise, I have a Xiegu G90, which was my first radio, that is portable enough. Itās got a bit of heft to it (2.5 kg 
), but is 20W, has a great ATU and a nice waterfall.
For the antenna, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible and to make use of my carbon 6m mast. I found @MM0EFIās random wire suggestion and it looked ideal. This is 5.5m radiator, with two 4.25m counterpoises. Theyāre attached via bananaplugs to a BNC, then a short piece of coax with a common mode choke into the radio.
The battery situation isnāt ideal. Iām using an ultramax 18 Ah LiFePO4 battery, which has loads of capacity and much better than a lead acid or a LiPo one but itās still around 2.5 kg. I use it when out in the garden, but have never had to carry it very far. I do have a few 18650 lithium cells which Iām meaning to make my own portable battery but Iāve not got round to it yet. So the ultramax had to do.
Once Iād fumbled about with finding a free frequency - which someone asked if it was free, I said no, we had a chat, and then they started using it 
- but I moved on and once the spot was out, I was jumped on by the chasers! First time being āthe DXā, and sometimes hard to make anything out of just sheer noise, but it was good funā¦ āthe alpha go againā¦
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I started on 40m, had a listen to 10m, but it seemed dead, then moved to 15m and then finally 20m. I managed 37 contacts, with 14 countries, two summit to summit QSOs (LA/RL-149 and DM/BM-002), and one POTA contact. My furthest contact was with Z36T in The Republic of North Macedonia at ~1,500 miles.
(A few QSOs donāt show on sotadata?)
By this time it had been about 50 minutes and I was cold! My logging hand (without a glove) had had enough, and it was time to pack up and head back. The trip down was quick, and it was nice to see the sun peaking through a few times. I met a couple of other folks out for a walk and the car park had quite a few cars in, so I wasnāt all alone.
It was back home for a cup of tea, and see how badly I managed to mess up my log. I was using cloudlogoffline app on iOS and hadnāt found the setting to set a default frequency, plus entering the s2s locations was a pain so Iād just written them in random boxes. After what seemed like a whole day away from home in the morning, the afternoon on the computer to sort things out went by in a flash and it was time for the school run.
Now to decide whereās next! 
