In reply to 2E0HJD:
I guess u owe me one, hi.
In reply to G4OIG:
Wow, Gerald, did you really heft 64 lb up Great Rhos? What mast did you have, a Tennatower?
73
Brian G8ADD
PS I find my roach pole is better than a conventional walking pole as a third leg!
In reply to GW0DSP:
Paul, I’m going to send you the bill for cleaning of a vdu, IC-7400,
Watson PSU and various other equipment
Hi Mike, sorry about the domestic damage but glad you enjoyed my little treatise! I’m off now to see how much I can shave off my SOTApole without making it dangerously weak. If I disappear half way through our next QSO you’ll know I overdid it…
73 de Paul G4MD
In reply to G8ADD:
a properly adjusted pack frame such as a Karrimor
Good heavens, couldn’t agree more, I’ve still got mine as well and use it when conditions look dodgy. Foul weather kit goes in the bottom section, and I just drop the normal activating day-sack inside for a double dose of waterproofed containment!
Obviously great minds Brian, I’ve been eyeing it up with a view to attaching a 2m antenna - perhaps a j-pole inside 20mm plastic conduit - as a no-bother ready-to-go solution for a smash-and-grab when the weather at the summit is so grim that you don’t want to unpack the kit. I had this idea while sat atop South Barrule in a howling gale and horizontal rain…
73 de Paul G4MD
In reply to 2E0HJD: I think you’ve hit the nail here. Paring a few tens of grammes off the kit pales into insignificance compared with (My doctor’s recommendation) getting rid of a stone or so from the waistline. But life would be the worse without chocky bickies, best bitter, red wine and cream in coffee, HI.
Regards from an overweight M0DFA/G6DTN
In reply to GW7AAV:
In reply to 2E0HJD:
I usually leave mine in the car and eat them when I have returned that
way they can still be nice and fridge fresh from the cool bag. I
always have a nice cold drink there to re-hydrate me too.
Ditto! I would not dream of lugging a lunch box up a hill, and only take a small bottle of water for comfort, unless conditions are extremely hot (and if it was that hot I probably wouldn’t be climbing a hill anyway!)
Different of course on a major trek or all-day activation, but most activations are not on that scale.
Are you and I unique Steve?
73 de Paul G4MD
In reply to M0DFA:
In reply to 2E0HJD: I think you’ve hit the nail here. Paring a few
tens of grammes off the kit pales into insignificance compared with
(My doctor’s recommendation) getting rid of a stone or so
You’re lucky, my doc reckons I should lose four!
Good luck with the diet…
73 de Paul G4MD
In reply to G4MD:
Steve leaves his in the car for emergency use. Break glass and eat in Birmingham area:-)
In reply to G8ADD:
Wow, Gerald, did you really heft 64 lb up Great Rhos? What mast did
you have, a Tennatower?
Sorry, a typo on my part - it was 22kg. This was the occasion when I had just started using my 817 and as I wasn’t 100 per cent sure of how it would perform, I took the 290R along as well. My HF dipole was a heavy duty one which I usually use at home and the mast was 5 sections of ally to get some height. Cables - 2 x 5m of RG-213. 2m 5 el. 12AH SLAB.
When I got home, I had a struggle getting the back pack out of the car… that was without the mast and beam… so I decided to weigh it. I added back the water bottles, a bit of scoff and the mast and beam and it just tickled 22kg on the scales. I was amazed - didn’t I know about it that week. I did Beacon Hill as well that day. Needless to say I had reduced it considerably the next time I went out, packing kit in poly bags rather than plastic containers, etc.
My average is now around 15kg all in. That will still be heavier than many backpacks, but I do take bothy bag and other “survival” bits, even in summer going up single pointers. I can’t really be bothered to unpack it all - it just lives in the sack on a permanent basis and is checked periodically.
I do have a small glass fibre mast, but generally use the ally one as it survives the wind that always follows me to the summits!
73, Gerald
In reply to G4MD:
Hi Paul,
I usually leave mine in the car and eat them when I have returned
That’s fine for doing a series of summits like 4 WB’s in a day, but you have to take food when doing a series of summits where you don’t return to the car. Of course, even on simple summits I take a snack bar and water. I usually have cans of coke in the cool box in the car to replenish my caffeine level when I get off the hill, Hi! By the way, a cool box is essential in the car, even in winter - to keep your sarnies from getting too cold. I remember trying to eat my pizza on The Cheviot… That was my fault for taking it out of the backpack before operating and not eating it until after I’d packed up and scraped the ice off the mast and antennas.
I would not dream of lugging a lunch box up a hill, and only
take a small bottle of water for comfort,
Lunch box?.. all that excess weight from the plastic - I use poly bags. Besides squashed tomato sarnies taste much better than ones that have not been crushed! Fancy water bottles can add weight as well - the small plastic bottles that are used for bottled spring water are ideal… and you can refill them with spring water if you find a suitable stream (you know, the one with the dead sheep lying in it a couple of hundred metres upstream - you don’t find this until you start walking again!).
For the record, I drank 2.5 litres of water and 1.2 litres of coke when I did the 5 MW’s the other weekend - and I was still partially dehydrated the next day!
73, Gerald
Sugary drinks like Coke do nothing to help you rehydrate, quite the opposite. Stick to water - kick your Coke habit!
I use a bladder in the rucksack for the water. It takes up less room than bottles and is always readily available for a sip with taking off the rucksack or unpacking. I find 1.5 litres is more than enough for me on a full day, but Jimmy and Liam can easily get through 2 litres each in half a day, thence requiring a ‘top-up’.
On SOTA day trips, our ‘formula’ is to have a large cooked breakfast on the outward journey. Then the only main food we have while out is a litre flask (3 cans) of soup between us. Much easier to pack than a series of lunch items as well. After a substantial breakfast, this is sufficient to keep us going through the day, and the warming effect is welcome. I do carry things like Nutri-Grain bars for a quick energy boost as needed.
On the Pennine Way, things were very different. To our surprise, we found after the first week that we preferred to eat everything from our accommodation-provided packed lunches in one sitting. This will probably be the routine again on the Gritstone Trail next week.
In reply to M1EYP:
Hi Tom,
Of course I use Diet Coke… when I read your comment I crac’d up!
Don’t know how you could eat soup on a hot day - it would send me into overdrive.
73, Gerald
Don’t know how you could eat soup on a hot day…
Didn’t know myself until I tried it. It is surprisingly pleasant! Mind you, how often is it that it is actually hot on a summit? Very very seldom, even in mid-summer, in my experience.
In reply to M1EYP:
I’ve never taken soup - maybe I’ll try it this winter. No doubt I’ll now have to go through a flask weighing exercise!
73, Gerald
I do have a small glass fibre mast, but generally use the ally one as
it survives the wind that always follows me to the summits!73, Gerald
Sounds like you ought to go easy on the baked beans, Gerald!
73
Brian G8ADD
In reply to G8ADD:
Baked beans - I very rarely eat the things Brian. Honestly, I often get out the car at the parking spot and it is all calm - ascend even a single pointer and it’s windy up there. The main exceptions are the evening activations when there is a greater chance of a period of calm.
I always check the weather forecast and interpret a 5 mph wind as being 20 mph on the summit. Temperatures likewise - 15 degrees forecast and half that up on the summit. That’s why MWIS is better than the Met Office / BBC forecasts - prepared by those in the know.
As for the mast, well some think mine is heavy, but I was amazed at what Neil MW0ECX had put up on Aberedw Hill the other weekend. I honestly thought I was seeing a single band entry in VHF NFD when I came over the brow of the hill. Getting closer I could see he was only using a dipole and I relaxed a bit… just a bit, Hi.
73, Gerald