TO ALL:
Many thanks to all contributors on here and to Roy, who posted the schedule only after I SMS’d him to say the tent was up & also to Mark for their support and teamwork. This was all essential to success and I would have really struggled on my own.
Planning this tentatively then meticulously for a month or two now, I have fretted about the lack of a good forecast for the best part of a week and I was never fully confident about proceeding with something of a calculated risk. In the years that SOTA has existed I have only had the confidence to do HNY from a summit twice before. The WX or a chronic chest infection, have always led to last minute cancellations. This time the BBC and MWIS forecasters got it more or less right but small effects outside their predictions could have had a large impact on comfort if not safety. The north-south dry stone wall was critical to this. Without that, I would not have even considered it.
Apologies to those who tried and failed, especially Karl. I like to specialise on 80 and particularly 160 but these are not to everyone’s taste or ability. That said I was really impressed how stations managed 160m QSO’s with the strangest of lashups, some apparently at very short notice! 160m was not propagating as far as on the 15th December from NP18 but it did produce some overseas contacts which is satisfying.
The spur of the moment decision to try 20m, because I ended up with some spare time, turned out to be a good one. As well as UK and EU, I was fortunate enough to work a handful of USA and Canadian stations.
I must thank Chris M0PXP (worked on 2m-FM on NY Eve - 4 miles distant) and his friend who are in the habit of climbing NP10 every New Year’s day, pre-dawn to watch the sun rise. There was certainly no sunrise to be observed today, just driving snow but they did me a great favour by removing the 160m loading coils in darkness for QSY to 80m. It meant that I didn’t need to dress up for a brief outing and then put snow in the (mainly) dry tent. Chris also confirmed that one loading coil had detached at one end only. That had allowed operation on 1.985 instead of 1.832 when it happened the night before. It was a solution which avoided going out in heavy, wind driven rain, darkness and fog to sort the problem. Needless to say these willing helpers descended soon afterwards and I can confirm that no sun appeared though it did stop snowing with daylight.
18 hours prone in the small tent with an airbed which burst in the first hour, added to constant noise caused by the WX outside, put paid to any real sleep. I retired at 2am and was awake again at 3am. As a result the descent on icy paths was slow and now the whole experience seems more like a dream.
Thanks again to all involved including of course the chasers who have to fight with noise while an activator can almost hear a pin drop on the frequency. Thank you for your kind comments on the air, your warmth and friendliness. It makes all the difference.
73 and best wishes to all for 2017.
Let’s hope it’ll turn out a good 'un.
THANKS ALSO TO THE SOTA MT, who without any payment, made it all possible for yet another year.
John G4YSS using SSEG Club station GX0OOO/P.
HNY
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