Islands in the mist

It was a bit misty. No it was silly misty. I managed to climb the wrong lump by blindly following the path. I looked at the cairn and thought “nah… not walked enough yet”. For the 1st time in years and years I wasn’t sure where I was and had to use and rely on the GPS to find where I was and how to get to where I wanted to be. Finally, after much bog hopping and squelching I got to the real top: Beinn an t-Sidhean GM/SS-127 which is Anglicised to Ben Sheann.

Occasionally the mist cleared and there were some hills to look at, here is Ben Ledi GM/SS-023.

The bands seemed lively, occasional short skip on 40m, 20m full of SSB signals and I even managed 1 QSO on 17m.

60m SSB: 17 QSOs (2x S2S)
40m SSB: 8 QSOs
40m CW: 4 QSOs
30m CW: 9 QSOs (1x S2S)
20m CW: 10 QSOs (1x S2S) (2x North America)
17m SSB: 1 QSO (1xS2S)

Silliest QSO was on 17m where I worked Paul GM4MD/p on SS-129 by groundwave. I’d heard a PY2 working G stations when tuning so thought it worth a spot and call. Certainly was. I’m not sure who was more pleased or surprised, me or Paul :slight_smile:

Station setup for 20m (30/20/17m dipole)

By the time to leave most of the mist had cleared leaving a view of Loch Lubnaig to the South. (Still hazy though). The lump in the middle distance is the wrong hill I went up first. D’Oh!

10 Likes

Yes, one of those ridiculously random things you wouldn’t believe if you saw it on the telly… I was on 80m and things were going really slowly, so I did something I almost never do - had a look at the spots to see if my self-spot had gone through… It had, but whilst there I noticed Andy’s spot for 18MHz… what the hell I thought, I’ll give it a go. I dialled in his frequency, peaked the ATU for best signal and gave a call… the rig survived, and Andy came straight back for a totally unexpected and immensely welcome S2S :smile: An excellent conclusion to the activation (I did go back to 40m but it was heaving with contest stations. Cue to pack up and collect Gerald for the descent !)

By amazing coincidence tomorrow’s summit is Ben Ledi as pictured in Andy’s report above. It would be spectacular if we get the same conditions… provided we find the right summit :wink:

73 de Paul G4MD

1 Like

What a shame i didn’t hear you for an S2S also!

I’d have gone wild for an S2S on either of your summits! Never mind.

1 Like