WX was going to be blue sky non-stop and I was going to drive out to Luss to continue bagging uniques. But I had a few chores to do this morning so I couldn’t do Luss and the chores, the chores won and so Tinto won a quickie activation.
It takes about as long to drive to Tinto as Scald Law so it may become my longer training hill. It’s 3.4km and 470m ascent so somewhat more than Tinto. Also the final pull is a bit steep and it does grind when you want to play on the bands!
Anyway parked up and booted, at the top 1hr30 later including a few longish talks to other walkers. I parked by a 911 Carrera 4 GTS which has a lovely shine. I was de-booting when its owner arrived and we talked Petrolhead / Midlife crisis cars and supported each other about the cost of tyres for cars that go a bit…his are 1.75 times more than mine and mine make me cry when I buy new ones.
So Tinto… at the top I decided to play with the 41ft “random” this time. I’m using my IC-705 to get more used to using it so out it came, up went the 41ft and off we went. Well I would have but I couldn’t get a match on 15m. Booger! This has never happened before but I have never set the 41ft up using a fence before and I wonder if the fence wires were doing bad things. Never mind a match was easily found on 17m and 18 QSOs worked on CW with ODX being 4Z4DX. I couldn’t get a match on 10m either, again never happened before but 12m was easy and 2 CW QSOs worked there. 40m matched easily an 5 SSB QSOs worked, 40 seemed quiet but I worked Tom M1EYP/P, long time since we had an S2S. I realised I’d never tried my 705 on 60m and I have loads of 60m stuff in the memories so onto FE I think (5.3985 USB) and Paul G4IPB was an easy QSO then Tom appeared, a bit quiet at 41 but workable. I finished on 30m CW and worked Tom again, he was louder on 30m than 60m. I also worked Victor GI4ONL on 30m. I’ve been working lots of short skip G QSOs during the current maximum, quite novel in some ways.
After that, a Toffee Crisp, a long drink, packup and comfort break and back down to the car ASAP. Took about 50mins but more chats on the way. The WX was wonderful, very few clouds, a bit hazy, warm in the sun, amazing blue sky and a damn biting cold wind.
OK, so I need to play with the 41ft to find out why it was not matching today. I am getting to like my 705 more as I use it, CW sounds better with athe 150Hz filter but some people are not in the passband when they call. Luckily the waterfall shows them and a quick RITing and there they are 
IC-705 is strong sunshine, very readable.
I was fed up that I was missing out on the head mounted SOTA antennas…Ed @DD5LP has a head mount whip he uses. Tome @M1EYP has a head mounted AlexLoop. So now I have a head mounted 5m pole with 41ft Random 
The view out towards Culter Fell, Gathersnow Hill and Broad Law. Broad Law is visible centre righ in the far distance. Behind me is Edinburgh/Glasgow and all the Central Belt towns, the most densely populated part of Scotland and in front of me is an awful lot of nothing that looks nice.
Possibly the largest Bronze Age (2000BC-700BC) Cairn in Scotland at the summit along with a 50’s vintage trig point. The moss growing on the trig nicely hides the graffiti that assorted Scheme Goblins painted on it 20 years back. And yes, that sky is really that colour, it was causing lots of people to check their GPS in case they had been transported down to The Med!
Antenna system. 41ft random wire running about 4m up the pole then out to a distant fence post. 3 counterpoises (as suggested by Heinz HB9BCB). My camera again shows its huge dynamic range, yes the white/yellow blob is the Sun… it does appear in Scotland sometimes
38 QSOs in 1hr15 on the air midweek will do for me. A damn fine leg stretch and I had a chocolate bar, I wasn’t sure if the exercise was enough but a blood sugar reading of 5.5 when I got back was just peachy. 
It’s a work day tomorrow… boo!
