I’ve driven across the A66 many times and the Hoove I’ve activated it once before. its probably the closest non-TW summit from my house on the east coast. Less than 80 miles to drive and quite simple to get to the starting point on the boundary between Durham and North Yorkshire. Then a very short walk across the moor to the summit trig point. But first I had to get to the start. The last time I activated this I missed the turn off. I had no intention of doing so again.
This is when complacency got the better of me. I knew where the turn off was - at Bowes on the A66. I cruised along following a large lorry in front of me - there was no need to overtake or hurry as I’d be turning off soon and I had plenty of time.
A short while later I noticed I was now driving through moorland scenery. This wasn’t right, so I continued a few miles on to the next lay by and checked the map. Oh, dear… I’d missed the turn off. Oh dear! A U turn was called for but the central reservation gaps had ‘No - U-Turn’ signs on them. The next round-about was at the Kirby Stephen turn off and too many miles ahead for my impatience, especially as I noticed my fuel gauge was about to hit the red…… Where’s the nearest fuel? Kirby Stephen. How will I get back to Hoove? But the road was quiet with little traffic. With nothing behind me and nothing approaching I did a U-turn opposite a farm. According to Google Maps there was a garage just outside Bowes. So I turned off the next slip road and headed into Bowes. There was no garage in site and when i checked ‘Google Maps again, the garage was actually on the outskirts of Barnard Castle. I took one wrong turn in Barnard Castle but eventually found it and topped up with petrol. Another panic over. Returning towards the A66 I wasn’t prepared to make the same mistake as before and got out of the car and walked the few yards towards the A66 to make sure I could legally make it into the turn off I needed. I could - so I did. This turned out to be the wrong turn off. More map reading - this time from a real map. And so after adding 25 miles to my journey and an hour or more extra journey time I arrived at the border of North Yorkshire and Durham just above The Stang.
There were still a few drifts of snow around as I set off on foot across the flat bleak moor with a strong headwind and flurries of snow but 30 minutes later I was at trig point and sought shelter from the cold wind in the sink-hole next to the summit. After setting up my HB1-B and the linked dipole aerial I made myself comfortable and tried to post an alert. Alas no signal so I had to get up and wander around until I got a signal on the phone (EE). I self spotted using my SotaGoat app.
I got my first chaser, PA9CW on 10mhz almost immediately. Then nothing. After 15 minutes of knocking out ‘CQ sota’, on my little Russian ‘spy’, key I dropped the link on my linked dipole, did another self spot and called CQ SOTA. on 14mhz where I was immediately answered by Manuel/EA2DT and another 37 chasers in the next 33 minutes before the calls stopped.
Photo = my Russian Key but photo not taken on this outing.
I switched to 21mhz. and got 4 more contacts - 2 from the USA and EO8ADS from the Canary Islands.
At this point my backside and legs were getting numb along with my hands, It was getting rather late in the day so I packed up and returned to my car which was also my acommodation for the next two activations. (to follow…)
Post the alert before you get to the summit. I know there is good coverage at the parking for a few of my regular summits which means I can alert 60/90mins before I summit as I often decide at the last minute to activate these. But it’s much better to alert a day or two before to give chasers a chance to organise their chasing life around your activations, especially if you are activating something less frequently activated.
Doing a multi day activation? Post a wildcard alert to cover the all the summits for the whole period.
Thanks -I do always post an alert a day or more before activating, its making sure I get spotted I worry about… In fairness before I got a newer phone some years ago I had to rely on getting spotted by the RBN. I suppose I could also post a “QRV in 20 minutes” or whatever before i loose a signal at the top.
I’m lucky as Paul MM0ZBH runs an 80-10m skimmer just across the Forth in Aberdour. It’s great for ground wave reception for the summits in the hills around Edinburgh.
I hit the memory sender and out goes CQ SOTA CQ SOTA DE MM0FMF/P MM0FMF/P. Send that that 3 times and I will have been spotted. There is normally someone replying after the third CQ message has been sent. You really can’t beat that.
I highly recommend a lightweight portable chair, mine weighs 660g (including anti-sinking ground mat) and has a packed volume of a large fizzy-drink bottle (35cm x 10cm x 10cm). It’s very comfortable, quick to deploy and pack up, and I no longer suffer from leg, foot or backside aches or cramps. The best ones aren’t cheap but then my health shouldn’t be either.
This is probably obvious but it didn’t occur to me initially. Rebooting the phone will often wake it up and get it to do a network search - but it is a bit time consuming. Toggling the phone onto airplane mode has the same effect and is faster. The EE coverage on Hoove is a bit fussy, the network was probably optimised to cover the A66. (I have been activating now for about 9 years and I think that in general coverage (by EE anyway) has improved. The surprising bit is that I have found the relatively empty Scottish Islands to have very good - and unexpected coverage and the English Lake District which is almost always busy to have some surprisingly large holes in coverage…). ((Obviously I could improve my CW, but I still don’t enjoy that mode)). 73. Paul
I’ve not been involved in the technicalities of cellphone comms since 3G, but my technique still seems to work for marginal coverage areas: 1) Turn off data (so only traffic is the register and SMS). 2) Toggle into airplane mode. 3) Write SMS. 4) Turn airplane off and hope the SMS send succeeds before I get blacklisted / told to back-off for too many failures. Repeat 2 and 4 until outcome = success.
Seems to be the most reliable method of getting backcountry sched’s out via SMS in places with absolutely marginal coverage. So should work for spots too.
Every time I park up to commence a SOTA ascent, I save the location point in my satnav, using the SOTA reference as the name. I’ve got hundreds of them stored now and so navigation stresses for repeat activations are eliminated. It’s especially handy when I’m on the road for work and squeezing in activations between tour dates. Without @M0HGY beside me, I’d never remember how to get to half of these places!
That wasn’t obvious to me Paul = I must try that tomorrow (I’m on G/SB-001 - The Cheviot) if the signals poor.
I agree with you, the coverage of EE is quite good. When I first started this I did make a note against my personal log book on wether I got a signal or not. I must flick bag through my logs and see which ones were "No Sig)
I can sit in my Helinox chair inside my Terra Nova Bothy-2 – I tried it once in the living room. But no, my bothy bag is strictly for emergency shelter – the very idea of trying to activate from inside it and no longer able to keep an eye on my two dogs (one a large male golden retriever) sitting outside plus the prospect of the radio and me getting all sweaty OR some walker kicking me to ask if I’m alright [aka Colin @M1BUU] is the stuff of nightmares.
No, if the wx turns hostile AND I haven’t taken the small tarp [which is usually rarely] AND I can’t find a leeward spot (e.g. behind rocks or big dip in the ground] to shelter from the elements I would either do a quick standing-up 2m-FM-only activation or if it’s really chucking it down, declare it a failed activation and go home. I want to enjoy the activation and admire the scenery, not feel it’s an endurance.
It rarely happens to me [i.e. bad weather cancels play] but it doesn’t bother me. Most of the summits I activate are within an hour’s drive of home and I don’t mind doing the walk again on a better day.
It’s a DD Hammocks S (2.8m x 1.5m) so not tall enough to sit ‘inside’ in the chair (but okay for crouching or laying down which I hate whilst keying). If I make the tarp into a lean-to (either against a drywall or open on the leeward side then I can just about get my head under it. But tarp wind noise (generated close to my ears) in high wind has always been a problem for my hearing those 429 chasers.
Folk will say, take a larger tarp which I concede are more flexible but I know I would never carry the extra packed volume / weight.
I’ve had the walker/s asking me if I’m OK as per the blog…
I"ll let you know how I get on tomorrow - I’m taking our rather large Boarder Collie tomorrow. It might be a tight fit for both of us in the Bothy bag. We’ll see - I’ve got a length of rope and a decent peg to hold the rope down when he’ll probably get bored. I think he’s only been up one of our local TW summits activating before.
I remember about 5 years ago doing Little Mell Fell (G/LD-037) one bleak winter’s day with a very strong summit wind blowing the fallen snow into a low-level white-out and trying to use my bothy bag as a windbreak for me and my two cocker spaniels [the 16yo now Silent Paw], but - with the BB flapping noisily like a wild thing - the dogs were too spooked by my attempts. Almost a failed activation (thank goodness for regular 2m FM chasers).
Unless you take and use the tarp on every activation, I don’t see a conflict. Here’s my logic:
After years of getting aches or cramps on every activation sitting on the ground or on low rocks (which was not only unpleasant and bad for my health but it also shortened my activation times) I now carry and use the chair 99% of the time.
Being retired I can largely pick and choose dry or dry-ish days on which to activate and either I know or hope I can find natural shelter from the wind, so normally don’t take a tarp (a tarp forces me to take my 30l rucksack rather than my preferred 20l one).
I’ll take the tarp only if the summit is one of those feature-less, shelter-less rounded moorland ones you get so often in G/NP OR I insist in going despite rain forecast to be worse than scattered showers. I can set the tarp up as a vertical or slightly-sloping windbreak so I don’t cool down too quickly. I have an alpine hat, waterproof hooded jacket and over trousers. As long as the KX2 is out of the rain and my 12yo cocker spaniel has her raincoat or pullover we’re okay (the 4yo GR isn’t bothered by getting wet in fact he seeks out puddles and ditches ).
I had no intention of doing so again. 
I knew where the turn off was - at Bowes on the A66. I cruised along following a large lorry in front of me - there was no need to overtake or hurry as I’d be turning off soon and I had plenty of time.
so I continued a few miles on to the next lay by and checked the map. Oh, dear… I’d missed the turn off. Oh dear! A U turn was called for but the central reservation gaps had ‘No - U-Turn’ signs on them. The next round-about was at the Kirby Stephen turn off and too many miles ahead for my impatience, especially as I noticed my fuel gauge was about to hit the red…… Where’s the nearest fuel? Kirby Stephen. How will I get back to Hoove? But the road was quiet with little traffic. With nothing behind me and nothing approaching I did a U-turn opposite a farm. 
According to Google Maps there was a garage just outside Bowes. So I turned off the next slip road and headed into Bowes. There was no garage in site and when i checked ‘Google Maps again, the garage was actually on the outskirts of Barnard Castle. I took one wrong turn in Barnard Castle but eventually found it and topped up with petrol. Another panic over. Returning towards the A66 I wasn’t prepared to make the same mistake as before and got out of the car and walked the few yards towards the A66 to make sure I could legally make it into the turn off I needed. I could - so I did. 
This turned out to be the wrong turn off. 
