Today’s plan had been to get up early, drive a short distance, and get a hill with a winter bonus. In the end, I was coming off the back of a couple of weeks of feeling ill, and I wasn’t feeling like going far at all when my alarm when off in the morning. In fact, I’d just scratched the idea altogether and gone back to sleep. A wee while later, after coming round to the land of the living (mostly aided by breakfast), I figured it’d be a shame to waste a really good day, and I should at least get out and try and knock off one of the simpler hills in my area.
Ben Bowie (GM/SS-251) just outside Helensburgh seemed just the ticket. 40 minutes drive, a fairly straightforward approach, and decent views would be a nice way to salvage a point from nothing.
I left the car in the small car park just off the A818 at NS 328 842. There looked to be room for about 6-8 cars, and although the place was fairly busy with folk out for wee strolls with dogs and such, I was able to get a space without too much trouble. The track up was good, straightforward forestry track, following the John Muir Way most of the way up, with only a few frozen puddles to have to sidestep. As I ascended, the view across to Loch Lomond started to open up, the view across Inchmurrin and Inchcailloch to the ridge of Conic Hill made the appearance of the Highland Boundary Fault particularly clear.
Once a wee bit higher up, there’s a choice of two routes up onto the summit plateau - I opted for the more direct route straight up, a wee grassy scrape that’s just about visible to the right hand side from the main track. It was a steep wee pull up, and just as I was starting to get a sense of nearing the top, my radio sparked into life, and I picked up a bit of Iain @MM3WJZ S2S on nearby Beinn a’ Mhanaich (GM/SS-066) at around 11:30. I was still a wee bit breathless from the pull up to the plateau as I initially made the QSO, but Iain was kind enough to give me a wee minute til I could get sat down and make contact properly.
With a first contact in the book, the next job was to get the pole up with the Slim G and start trying to make a few more contacts.
Right away, I was able to catch my second S2S of the morning, catching Andy @MM7MOX approximately 88km to the east on West Lomond. I had to be patient, it sounded like Andy was doing good business up there in the Fife hills, but it was good to finally catch him properly after missing out a couple of weeks ago.
After putting out a CQ, I was able to get my activation contacts made quickly and without too much hassle. Rather than doing what I’ve done on previous activations however, I decided it’d be nice to just hang out, enjoy the sunshine and the new and just take my time picking up whatever contacts came my way. It had been a wee bit windy on the walk up, but I’d managed to place myself just on the lee side of the hill, and it was almost, almost warm in the sun once out of the wind.
After the first run of contacts dried up, I thought I’d put out a self-spot via sotl.as. What I didn’t realise (until Peter @GM7STP kindly corrected me), was that I’d previously put a spot out for Archie @GM4KNU a few days before, and that sotl.as defaults to the last callsign you spotted, so I errantly spotted Archie on the summit rather than myself - apologies for any confusion this may have caused!
The big highlight of this activation, was getting to try out my new Yaesu FT-270, recently acquired as a pair via eBay. Too much faffing about with interference on cheap Chinese handhelds on some recent hills brought me to the conclusion (with the help of several users on this here forum) that a robust mono-bander from a reputable manufacturer would help solve my woes, and that certainly seemed to be more like the case today. Granted, there didn’t seem to be much of an RF threat round about Ben Bowie, but it did seem like my Tx and Rx were a bit more evenly balanced this time round. Finally having a working S-meter made a big difference in providing signal reports as opposed to just guessing based on audible hiss!
The only downside of working with the FT-270 is that they came with used NiMH batteries, and they’re something I’ve never really used before - I’ve been spoiled by always using Lithiums on any electronic devices I’ve used. After a slightly battery-interrupted conversation, followed by some good advice from Jack @GM4COX a few days previous, I’d tried deep charge-cycling the batteries a couple of times, and it seemed to be helping - the one battery I was using was flashing low battery warnings towards the end of my hour on the hill, but otherwise it held up pretty soundly.
12 contacts in the log, I decided it was time to head down off the hill and get a hot lunch. For the sake of variation, I opted for a slightly different route off the hill, heading towards Helensburgh, then east through some thankfully very frozen bog, then rejoining the John Muir Way track for a nice easy descent to the car park. I did have a really pleasant conversation with a couple who were intrigued by the radio sticking out the front pocket of my pack, it turned out the guy was a member of the local mountain rescue team and was telling me all about their radio challenges, sounded a lot more serious than just playing radio in the sun!
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Strava route record: Ben Bowie | Strava