A quick report on my 4 GD activations of last week when I was on holiday walking in the Isle of Man - I will be going back next year to complete GD-003 South Barrule and to give GD-002 a proper HF activation…
My XYL Judy and I are keen walkers and decided to attend the 5 day Isle of Man Walking Festival. There are two of these events held in June and October in GD every year:
http://www.isleofmanwalking.com/
The island is compact - only 33 miles long but it offers everything a walker could find walking on the UK mainland. Moors, Glens, Field walking, disused railway lines, stoned tracks and byways and five SOTA Summits.
As well as activating 4 out of 5 GD Summits it was great to meet Rob and XYL Audrey (G4RQJ) in person. They arrived on the Island part way through our holiday there. The weather for us was good - all activations were in the dry and we only got wet for one hour on all five of the walking days. Only one activation was conducted when we were part of a guided walk - this was “smash and grab” and thank you to the 4 stations I worked on 2m FM from GD-002.
GD-005 Mull Hill on Tues 26th June 0915z-0945z 12aH SLAB and FT-857
Dipoles for 40m and 60m (no ATU required)
This had to be a fairly quick activation as I wanted to also do Bradda Hill GD-004 two miles to the north of GD-005. We then had to meet a walking group further to the north and do some hill walking.
32 QSOs were completed in 30 minutes. 5 MHz SSB and 7 MHz CW were used with a fairly even split between CW & SSB. 15 SSB QSOs and 17 CW QSOs were made with 8 DXCC countries worked.
This is a very easy summit to activate - almost as easy as TW-004 and TW-005 are, but watch for the sharp IoM gorse - it’s a little prickly on the legs on the way up to the summit. Glad we were not wearing shorts hi…
We operated alongside one of the WW2 pill boxes that are still intact, indeed G3CWI has operated from inside one of these fairly recently - check out his film on Flickr!
GD-004 Bradda Hill Tues 26th June 1139z-1207z 12aH SLAB and FT-857
Dipoles for 40m and 60m (no ATU required)
Access was from Fleshwick Bay SC201714 where I parked the car, leaving Judy XYL to read her book. It was a steep climb and you earn your one point on this one. I had to stop 3 times on the ascent to catch my breath…made worse by the 12 aH slab being carried and the FT-857. (I was told by a local retired farmer that if you access the summit on the coastal path from Port Erin and Bradda Head it is quite dangerous. The cliff path is of an unstable peat. This instability was caused by the very bad fire there a few years ago when the smoke reached the south of Ireland.)
37 QSOs were made from this one including 60m S2S QSOs with John GW4BVE on GW/NW-009 and with Steve GM7SRJ/P on GM/ES-054. The QSO mode tally was weighted to CW on this one with 12 on 60m SSB and 25 on 40m CW over the 28 minutes active. I worked the 40m pileup down to nothing and left the hill quickly so that we could meet the walking party shortly after the activation. 9 DXCC countries worked.
GD-001 and GD-002 reports to follow as later topic…
Phil G4OBK-GD4OBK/P