This year’s summer “Boys Outing” will be a camping trip to the Isle of Man.
The team will be Tom MD1EYP/P, Jimmy MD0HGY/P, Edward 2D0NSR/P and Liam. We intend to activate all five of the summits on the island, with some possibly repeated during the week. Please see the SOTAwatch Alerts for a general (subject-to-change) idea of our intentions.
All contacts will be (of course) from IOTA EU-116. I did think about going over to the Calf of Man to activate the HuMP on there, but this is unlikely, as are any HuMPs on the Manx “mainland”. WAB references and QRA locators can be determined from the individual SOTAwatch summit information pages.
The ferry is booked, the campsite is booked. A check on the camping gear is in order. I hope that three freshly charged 7Ah SLABs will be sufficient! We have received, via mail order, the Manx government’s 1:25000 Outdoor Leisure maps for the island. OS mapping only goes as far as 1:50000 scale for the IOM.
I now just need to keep my fingers crossed that the old bonce might improve a bit by then. I have just had the pressure in the valve (inside my head) tweaked up to 170 at the hospital on Tuesday, but I am still getting some very sudden and painful low pressure responses if I pick something up off the floor, tie my shoelaces or cough! Other than that I’m doing OK and down to normal paracetamol for pain relief, and off the codeine phosphate, pizotifen and morphine!
After a ten year campaign for my first association completion, I am looking forward to doing the second inside three or four days!
I will also be doing a “completion” that week. I have 4 SE summits left to do, I’m planning on doing the last two I need on the mainland on the Wednesday and then the two on the Isle of Wight on the Thursday and Friday.
In reply to M1EYP:
You may want to look at Garmin uk for a gps map
FREE Isle of Man Map
Download your free Isle of Man Recreational Map. This 1:25k scale map of the Isle of Man is produced using the Local Government Survey Data enabling you to discover the outdoor delights that this tiny Isle has to offer.
As I say Nick, it is more likely that we will revisit SOTA summits rather than activate any HuMPs during the week. “Enjoy” depends on how much exposure there is on the ridge walk! And I presume the correct reference is HGD-001?
We have that map in paper form Mike. We don’t use GPS as such, although do have GPS functionality on our phones, which works in conjunction with the OS Atlas app which is very good (but probably only 1:50000 on IOM).
Mickey, we will try to keep alerts updated if they need to be changed due to weather etc. Your best best of working any of the summits S2S is on 12m CW, but failing that you’ll have to do it the difficult way with Ed or Jimmy on 40m SSB…
In reply to M1EYP:
Your best best of working any of the summits S2S
is on 12m CW, but failing that you’ll have to do it the difficult way
with Ed or Jimmy on 40m SSB…
I’ll be trying for the 40 SSB challenge, though the band has been very long lately. I doubt that the skip will be short enough for 12m even if I did CW, though this band does throw up the occasional surprise!
In reply to M1EYP:
You can do them all in a day Tom, did it once but never again. There is no exposure on the ridge to N Barrule but the summit is a bit pointy and upset my vertigo once, done it since with no problem. Like you we like to repeat the Sota’s if possible. Look for us there in the next two weeks. we’ll warm them up for you.
73
Rob
G4RQJ
In reply to G4RQJ:
Audrey just pointed out that the boat trip to the Calf was £20 per person last year.
Your vertigo would almost certainly kick in on the cliff path from Bradda Head to Bradda summit, best go from Fleshwick and if necessary avoid the path along the cliff edge for about 50yds by following the wall up a craggy bit and rejoining the main path avoiding the hazard area.
Take care and enjoy
Rob
G4RQJ
Of course you are right GD/HGD-001. A senior moment, I am still reliving my Helvellyn round earlier in the week - hi hi! There isn’t that much exposure, no scrambling but fantastic views over Ramsey and beyond but of course in limited time you can only do so much. Whatever you do I am pretty sure that you will enjoy your time over there. Geoff M6PYG and I are going back later in the year.
Yes, that was certainly our best walk during our stay, but we were also lucky with the weather on that day. Lots of summit contacts in G and GW from there.
73,
Rod
Well, here we are at last. Off to activate our 5th different association tomorrow, and all UK so far!
I’m not sure, but will we be the first to have activated the highest peaks in all five of our “home” associations?
Scafell Pike G/LD-001
Snowdon GW/NW-001
Ben Nevis GM/WS-001
Slieve Donard GI/MM-001
Snaefell GD/GD-001
The first four are all done and safely in our past activation records. Snaefell is, currently, scheduled for Tuesday.
There should be plenty of opportunity to work the summits as we will be QRV on five bands - 40m, 20m, 12m, 6m and 2m, and on four modes - FM, SSB, CW and PSK31. The operators - Jimmy MD0HGY/P, Edward 2D0NSR/P and Tom MD1EYP/P - look forward to working lots of chasers over the next few days.
Had a listen for you on 12m PSK & did resolve some of your callsign. I called you but you must not have heard me. I did put out several long calls around your QRG a little later in case you were listening for signals to work, but other than an EA I didn’t hear anyone else on 12m. It is a very noisy band here so if PSK31 couldn’t make the trip in what is a quieter part of the band I doubt CW would make it where it is very noisy here.
I Could hear on you 20m CW when you first started, but very very weak & at best 219 here in Blackburn. I did call after your pile-up had died down a little but I didn’t receive my report so I won’t be claiming the chase. As you had many callers I left it at that. There will be another time I’m sure
Conditions on 80 / 60 /40 have been very poor over the past few days, & although 12m has opened, it has not been very spectacular. 40m has been very poor for the past couple of days for anything less than 600KMs & although 60m has worked reasonably well, even that has been poor in the middle of the day.
Enjoy your trip & hope to catch you on another summit before your return, 50MHz AC on Tuesday from GD-001 perhaps Hi!
That’s interesting Mark because I think you are in the log for yesterday. Everything seemed to be completed properly from my point of view.
At least that was worlds away from what happened today. I repeatedly called in a DL4??/P that was calling me, and repeatedly a non-portable DL8 replied. I continued to ignore him, insisting on the DL4 only. But he still sent his call every time, obliterating the weaker DL4 station.
Anyway he eventually went away wishing me 73 and thanking me for the non-existent contact and sending me R R for the report I never sent.
Ironically my operating slows down when up against impatient and inconsiderate callers. I run at 3 or 4 qsos per minute when everyone behaves themselves and a quarter of that when they don’t so surely it makes sense to listen to the activator and wait your turn?
Gd005 mull hill and gd003 south barrule now activated here. Something with an unpronounceable manx gaelic name tomorrow.
I was told to pronounce GD/GD-002 as Slough Ferrane by a local.
Given the number of different ways “ough” can be pronounced in English, this doesn’t seem terribly helpful! In particular “slough” is two differently pronounced words depending on whether you mean quagmire or snake’s skin.
The pronounciation is given in the Wikipedia article as [slu:fÉ™’ra:n], but I dare say SOTAwatch will garble the Unicode in that. Check the article. Closest to that in English would be Sloo Ferrane except that the long vowel they give in the last syllable is one that doesn’t really occur in most variations of English.
Doubtless there is local variation anyway. You won’t go far wrong with Sloo Ferrane and try to rhyme the final syllable with the proper name “Anne”.
We’ve had this joke before but you say it as it is written! Except
it’s not written in English which makes it harder
Nice joke yes, but actually this one is not pronounced as written. As a proper name, it is not as you would expect, even taking account of Manx Gaelic orthography.
See:
which explains the discrepancy as transposition of two consonants and subsequent elision of one of them. “gh” should map onto /x/ (velar fricative) but has completely disappeared.
