A beautiful day on Saturday and a great joint activation of Moel Famau GW/NW-044 with John M7RTB.
Got to the summit and found a little quietish spot to set up, perfect. Get the antennas set up and then sudden disbelief on my part as I’d emptied my rucksack and… no radio. In my haste to unpack and repack my bag (a bit of a bad habit I’ve developed over the years) as part of my prep for leaving the house I’d left my radio on the desk at home .
Thankfully John was much more prepared and had a spare radio, so we set about a nice afternoon activation getting lots in the log on 2m from as far a field Halifax and Walsall and down there Llyn Peninsula.
A very pleasant afternoon indeed but bloody chilly when the sun started going down. A lesson learned for me to do a checklist to make sure I have remembered the important things for an activation!
Bad luck! But I suppose it was also good luck that you were doing a joint activation! Thanks for the fab photos and glad you were still able to have a successful activation with some stunning views.
You remind me of the time I turned up for a climbing club weekend in the Lake District intending to do G/LD-018 Stoney Cove Pike and G/LD-011 High Street, both well covered in snow, but on the Saturday morning I opened the boot of the car to see that I had my crampons but had forgotten my boots, and ended up doing Little Mell Fell in trainers!
That’s like forgetting your boots. (That has been reported on here as well and not just by Brian @G8ADD .)
As for checklists, I’ve never used them. Instead I mentally imagine my kit from the radio, feeder, antenna to pole guys etc and make sure it’s all in the bag. This works better for me because I don’t always carry the same stuff.
Welsome to the Reflector. I’m sure someone will be along in a minute to confess to much worse…
Thanks all, nice to know there are others who suffer similar absent mindedness - I put it down to age on my part… But make the mistake once and hopefully learn from it!
I started doing checklists after I left my battery on one occasion and my antenna on another. Both issues were dealt with by borrowing bits of kit from Paul G4MD without him having to dismantle his station. It would have been a disaster had I been on my own.
That was many years ago. I now use the visualisation technique that you do and in general it works well. I tend to take surplus kit up the hill anyway as I don’t ever want to have to return to qualify a summit… so far 560 successful activations on 560 unique summits. Hopefully may it continue…
I was up there myself on GW/NW-044 Wednesday with my XYL. We did a 9 mile circuit from Loggerheads Country Park. Using my cheap FT-65 and RH770 whip I made 10 contacts in 10 minutes. I also worked M7DJM in Walsall and G6LKB in Ulverston, both called David - those two were my ODX QSOs. Less carried = less chance of forgetting something!
My incomplete inventory fails became boring on here many moons ago. However, if it’s a “much worse” you want, then I once turned up for a gig in Whaley Bridge - and realised I’d forgotten to bring my bass guitar. Thankfully that was close enough to drive home for it and back again. Thank goodness I didn’t pull that stunt on my recent run of Scotland shows!
Four years ago to the day, plus one, I activated Moel Eilio G/NW-022. I put up my 6m pole & Slim Jim only to find I’ll forgotten my SMA to SO239 adapter at home, so couldn’t attach my handie. Luckily my RH770 saved the day & got me 17 contacts, from memory. Always carry a back up!
You see, it’s nudge-theory. That’s where you make tiny changes/suggestions etc. to make people take a different course of action without forcing them. They often become determined to do something if you try to force them to do something else. So this is merely the RF police nudging you both into forgetting your adaptors so you will switch to connectors yourseleves to those that are not an affront to engineering and don’t need adaptors without feeling you’ve been forced to do so. Very clever psychology indeed
Funnily, Andy’s comment re. the RF police wasn’t far off-while I was in my shelter, a helicopter, which I assumed was a police one, did a circle around me & then flew off. No doubt checking as to which connectors I was using!
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I’m sure someone will be along in a minute to confess to much worse…
