Indeed, but I used to suffer from acute indigestion if I walked and ate. Little did I know that it was down to narrowed arteries which did not allow my heart to supply sufficient blood to both my leg muscles and my stomach. As many here know, it resulted in me having a heart attack, stents and then a year later I elected to have bypass surgery. Now I can eat and walk, but old habits die hard. I have got as far as having an energy bar or two at the car before I ascend and I might manage one during an activation, but sandwiches are usually a step too far.
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I used to carry a big bar of chocolate as an emergency energy source. For some reason every outing resulted in an emergency.
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Gentlemen, please! Not only is this a blatant thread hijack, but also a serious misuse of emergency equipment.
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Don’t get me started on Pencils! Blackwing 602 or even better Tombow Mono 100! maybe we should have a pencil thread!
Who’s going to lead it? (Pun intended)
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Am I the only one that uses a pen?
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I guess, we need two threads.
I’m using a cheep (2 pieces for 1 Euro?) no-name pen with a strong line since two years and it worked fine for logging. Should I sent a picture?
Or just carry something that lets you sharpen it in the field. I always have a pocketknife on me. It’s not the best way to sharpen a pencil, but it works.
Chris
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I not only carry a spare pencil (6g) but also a quality metal pencil sharpener (8g). Not sure what’s sadder - carrying the redundant equipment or knowing how much it weighs :-s
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I have a couple of them in my desk and it’s what I always use to sharpen the 5 pencils I have in my rucksack for SOTA logging purposes. Sometimes I’ve thought about possibly taking one of those 2 pencil sharpeners into my rucksack, but I’ve not made that decision yet.
Yes, 5 pencils. I know 1 or 2 would be enough, but I use to rescue some too short pencils from being binned by my son and they become my SOTA pencils…
These are:
They are lighter than the metal pencil sharpener…
73,
Guru
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For me, the latter Paul!
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Has no one mentioned plastic anvils…
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Thank you for bringing us back on topic Phil 
.
With close links to ‘useless’ equipment, I must also confess to being a fan of lugging an anemometer up most hills. As a gadget fan, I wouldn’t call it useless. I absolutely need to know the wind speed & wind chill temp but most times I forget to look!
At least twice while doing SOTA on British summits I’ve been asked “meteo?” so having an anemometer seems more sensible than a fishing pole.
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If you use it only for SOTA logging then it’s guaranteed to run out one day at the summit at a very inconvenient time [mid QSO]. It’s one reason I switched from pens to pencils. The others are: 1) pencil graphite works in the rain (provided you have the right paper), pen ink usually not, and 2) I can write / scribble faster than with a pen - think it’s cos it needs less pressure.
P.S. Pencils have a built-in end-of-life warning indicator - they become too short to hold.
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Here’s another good reason:
This is taken from my activation report of Mt. Arangoiti on 29/12/2014. I switched to pencils after that activation and never regreted.
73,
Guru
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Even if you do look, what then? Too late if you didn’t pack the winter clothes. I use my built-in wind speed / wind chill factor detector [me!] which lets me know if I made the right choices before I left home.
Ditto for deciding whether to attempt to erect my HF wire antenna in strong winds.
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It allows me to empirically justify my decisions Andy. (It doesn’t change them and can be ignored if circumstances dictate otherwise). A bit like the job list my wife gives me
But mainly it’s just a nice gadget that might be useful/interesting one day!
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No further justification needed than that. It’s what I say to my wife when she suggests throwing something of mine out.
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I haven’t carried a pen or pencil up a summit for more than 8 years. Only now, after reading this thread, do I realise the weight saving I have been enjoying.
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