SOTA tour 9 – 30 MAY 2023
A trip to harvest some uniques in GM/ES-land, an area we hadn’t visited before in May (apologies for the delay – will post in sections), and also tick off some ‘missed’ summits on the way back through SS-land. Mainly aiming for the lower hills (sadly, not fit enough for Braeriach etc) but with the proviso that I wanted to activate the hills on 2m and/or 70cm if at all possible. This meant that we weren’t venturing into Royal Deeside this trip owing to the probable lack of VHF/UHF contacts. I was expecting to have to resort to HF (using M0JLA’s rig) to activate at least some of the hills on our ‘hit list’ but I managed to get at least 1 2m fm contact on every hill (but only just!) and also a 70cm on most hills but not always the required 4 to qualify the hill. After a 3 night stay at Edzell, we moved to Lumphanan, north of Banchory (week) then Aberlour (week), Dollar (3 nights) and then the trek back to the Welsh Borders. Including the ‘outliers’ I visited 24 Marilyns and qualified all but 2 on 2m (and 17 on 70cm – wow!) This success rate would not have been achieved without the help of Fraser MM0EFI (21 contacts!) and the long suffering Aberdeen group (GM0APN, GM0NRT, GM1LKD, MM0RFN, MM0UD1, GM4JOJ) who found their relaxed chats at 1230 UTC were disturbed by a visitor begging for just a ‘few’ contacts on 2m/70cm. I am indebted to their unfailing patience and helpfulness – but I feel they were relieved when I finally got out of range!
During my stay in this area 2m began to be monitored during the day and 70cm radios were dusted off and masts erected. Some locals heard contacts with ‘neighbours’ they hadn’t spoken to for ages and some QSYd for a natter. 70cm was embraced with enthusiasm (58 different callsigns during the trip) and many were surprised at the distances achieved: out of 279 contacts during the trip 120 were on UHF. This result was also helped by the willingness of all other activators to have a try on 70cm and some were successful especially MM7MOX Andy on his GM/NS motorbike tour with the high point being his first contacts from a new summit GM/NS-126 when the first 2m and 70cm contacts (124km) were speedily achieved. On 70cm the furthest s2s was 148km GM/ES-059 Kerloch to GM/SS-177 Wether Law (2M0PVP) but on 2m I got MI0VFC on GI/MM-005 Slieve Meelbeg from GM/SS-059 Ben Cleuch at 248km. The shortest contact was 2km between the two Convals GM/ES-051 and 057 when we walked up together and then swapped summits from the pass for a fun way to get quick completes! However, the forest was being felled fairly close to the path and it was disconcerting to find a treetop across the path on our descent so we didn’t linger as the felling continued … On a few occasions the telescopic RH770 was useful for a quick S2S which inevitably appeared when the mast had not been erected or just been packed away (GM/ES-021 Ben Rinnes to MM0VPM on GM/WS-038, 95km and MM0YCJ on GM/NS-040, 138km) It is always worth monitoring the calling frequency as you start to descend and it was a quick scrabble in the sack to find the 770 to get Colwyn on the latter – and then a wait in the queue on 70cm to finish the job!
Ben Rinnes GM/ES-021 was our highest summit (but not our highest ascent – GM/SS-059 Ben Cleugh) and gave my most northerly contact MM7UPP Bryan on East Mainland, Orkney (near the Italian chapel) on both bands but I had been pleased to reach Brora, Helmsdale and Wick from lower hills. Only 1 English callsign was recorded G4ITR Keith in Newcastle from Kerloch GM/ES-059.
Apart from Fraser MM0EFI and those mentioned above, the most dedicated chasers were GM1TGY Charlie, Aberlour (many tx) , GM4JOJ Nigel Mintlaw, MM1FAS Richard, Elgin, MM7MWL Mike, Insch (who had been away), GM4KYQ Ron, Findhorn, GM4TOE Barry Banff (70cm mostly but also 2m by the end), GM0AXY and GM4YMM Ken and Christine Edinburgh, MM0HRI Ian Arbroath (my lone contact from GM/ES-085, the cattle infested Hill of Garvoch).
In summary a great trip but too many hills as the weather kept tempting us to keep going. Most interesting area GM/ES-061Bennachie and Mithir Tap, best hillfort GM/ES-054 Tap o Noth, most fun GM/ES-051 and /057 the Convals (and swapping summits), most interesting summit GM/ES-039 The Buck (rocky summit with Pictish carving but also bogs!), roughest walk GM/ES-059 Kerloch (much of the path is now a stream bed), most challenging route finding GM/SS-169 Innerdouny Hill (the trees had grown up too much to use the suggested shorter routes but we eventually found a way- then I had an unexpected pileup!), greatest disasters GM/ES-085 Hill of Garvoch (cattle!) and GM/ES-070 Hill of Fare (boring walk, flat top, late in the day, v poor contacts never again!)
Now I am left with one puzzle – when sitting on the delightful GM/CS-112 Beinn Mohr 471m in Glenbeg outside Grantown on Spey on a shapely little summit and looking over to the Cairngorms (for the first time), with snow patches and some cloud, I was having immense difficulty in finding any contacts as I had travelled further west and was almost out of range from Elgin and my recent chasers. I called and called with my Yaesu VX-7R on 5w with vertical dipole 2+m above me. I was eventually answered by GM7PBB/P John who had strayed from his amazing selection of mast up at Ness, Isle of Lewis and was using a Baofeng while looking at the Albert Memorial (pyramid) in Balmoral. The contact was very intermittent at my end but his signal was 51 when I could hear him and he returned with 51. In snatches I checked where he was, and discovered his home QTH (which we had passed a few years ago) so the contact was good enough to exchange information BUT … how were we getting through the formidable obstacles covered in cloud between us?? There was no fading it was 51 or nothing and I feel it can’t have been aircraft bounce as it went on for too long - theories please! BTW the attempt at 70cm failed!
Although the title mentions only the ES region of Scotland we did stray into both SS and CS territory briefly – mainly on the way to and from ES-land. The 2m and 70cm statistics are listed below:
10.5 GM/ES-044 2 pt 8 5 Easy walk, good contacts
10.5 GM/ES-076 1 pt 7 1 Raining, brief stay, steep descent
11.5 GM/CS-271 1 pt 6 4 Short easy walk, grassy hill fort
12.5 GM/ES-085 1 pt 1 0 Cattle problems, not on ridge, quick
13.5 GM/ES-059 2 pt 9 9 Saturday, good take-off, rocky track
15.5 GM/ES-065 1 pt 4 2 Onto moorland, beside stone wall
15.5 GM/ES-068 1 pt 4 4 Pleasant hill, rocky cairn
15.5 GM/ES-070 1 pt 2 1 Flat summit, getting late
16.5 GM/ES-049 2 pt 4 4 S2S, hail/rain storm, good plants
16.5 GM/ES-053 2 pt 5 2 Park in forest, difficult contacts
17.5 GM/ES-061 2 pt 7 8 Fascinating area, Mithir Tap also
19.5 GM/ES-039 4 pt 9 7 Pictish fish on summit rock, bogs
20.5 GM/ES-062 2 pt 9 6 Saturday, moving to Aberlour
21.5 GM/ES-081 1 pt 4 3 Drizzle, flat windfarm
22.5 GM/ES-051 2 pt 6 4 S2S – swapped summits (Convals)
22.5 GM/ES-057 2 pt 11 8 S2S, the locals found me, lovely day
23.5 GM/ES-054 2 pt 10 9 S2Sx4 party, fascinating hillfort
24.5 GM/CS-121 1 pt 4 4 Needed a lot of local help!
24.5 GM/CS-123 1 pt 4 4 Ditto
25.5 GM/ES-021 4pt 8 8 Highest summit, S2S, Orkney, flowers
27.5 GM/CS-112 1 pt 5 3 Lovely walk, nr Grantown, tucked away
28.5 GM/SS-216 1 pt 10 9 Busy summit and radio, limited time
28.5 GM/SS-169 1 pt 10 7 Challenging route-finding, gd contacts
29.5 GM/SS-059 4 pt 13 8 Ochil hills, steep route, hot
Thanks for your help everyone – and especially M0JLA. Further instalments will follow with pictures and slightly longer descriptions.
73 Viki M6BWA
