Hi Nigel,
I have applied for the Q and O call NOV for my Intermediate callsign and for my Foundation callsign, although it will be very unlikely that I will be using the Q and O call NOV with my Foundation callsign.
Jimmy 2E0EYP
In reply to 2E0EYP:
Belated congratulations Jimmy 
Best 73,
Mark G0VOF
In reply to 2E0EYP:
Congratulations… onwards and upwards
73
Chris, M0XRS
In reply to 2E0EYP:
Congratulations.
73, Frank.
In reply to 2E0EYP:
Nice one!
Now I have to listen for another new call!
Congratulations.
Graham G4FUJ
Thank you all for your comments.
Jimmy 2E0EYP
In reply to 2E0EYP:
Congratulations Jimmy, I look forward to putting your new call in my log.
Sean M0GIA
In reply to 2E0EYP:
Congratulations Jimmy.
I got my callsign last year after 50 years of SWL listening and hillwalking. I met an amateur walking up Moel Fammau with a fishing pole, and got talking. It resulted in me taking my foundation licence. I now wish I had taken my RAE when I much younger, as you have done
SOTA adds a wonderful new dimension to hillwalking. I look forward to an S2S soon
Cheers
John 2E0JBG
Thank you Sean and John for your comments.
Jimmy 2E0EYP
And to celebrate and wet the head of the new Intermediate Licence, what better way than to activate Black Hill G/SP-002? Well, very many better ways actually! But what better than to activate Black Hill G/SP-002 then go to the Stalybridge station buffet bar? Well, we couldn’t think of any. And when Richard G3CWI found out about the plan, he immediately booked himself a place.
Hence after a 6am get-up for Liam, Jimmy 2E0EYP and myself on Saturday 24th March 2012, we picked Richard up from across town and headed up the A34 and M60. The Tesco Extra at Reddish provided the breakfast stop, and we enjoyed an 8 item plus Tropicana orange juice at £4.25 each - a good start.
The A635 up through Ashton-under-Lyne and subsequent small towns was a bit of a drag and progress was slow. But at least we didn’t need to cover many road miles this being a relatively local Marilyn. We were parking up in the usual lay-by ahead of schedule, comfortably before 9am.
I spotted the fine weather ahead and immediately layered down to shirt sleeves as a warm early sun set about burning off the mist, which was trying in vain to cling to moor. A better job of this was made by the grouse in their short, low and noisy flights between the heather. Richard was sending APRS packets while ascending, which sounded like a robotic impersonation of the grouse!
The weather was stunning, and Liam and I used the tall base under the trig point to lean against and provide shade from the sun. The downside was that a plague of midges descended on us a couple of times, but they weren’t biting. I set up the MM20 aerial, while Jimmy erected the SOTA Beam. Richard was determined to qualify using only a Baufeng HT with rubber duck, on 70cm FM. On Black Hill.
I was a little surprised, as I have some 70cm FM QSOs from this summit myself in the past, but Richard could not solicit any response, despite a self-spot. He was offered use of the SOTA Beam and Jimmy’s 2m HT, or my station which was set for 20m CW or SSB, but Richard seemed determined that he was either going to make his contacts on 70cm FM with handheld and rubber duck - or not at all. And not at all was the result!
Jimmy racked up 16 on 2m FM, including 3 S2S QSOs as he celebrated the launch of his 2E0 logbook. On 20m CW, I self-spotted on 14.012MHz CW, mentioning SOTA G/SP-002 and WFF GFF-014. My first call was greeted with an almighty pile-up, which took me 45 minutes to work down! I ended with 58 QSOs, with the best DX being N3GJ, N1EU, N4EX and CN8GL. I was surprised at how early the US stations were coming through - N3GJ was worked at 1047z - and pleased with an unexpected call from CN. The activity from OM chasers continues to impress me - Slovakia has really got going in SOTA since its launch.
With EA4MZ at 1121z, I had worked the last station of the pile-up. Jimmy, Liam and Richard were ready to go, and I had lost a bit of momentum when one of my callers decided to send me a 4 minute over about his shack, his family and his life-story. I assume he hadn’t noticed I had been working between 1 and 3 stations per minute up to that point!
If I’d called again, I imagine I would have got another pile-up to work down, but with the flask of beef broth now emptied, the tummy was rumbling again. So down we went for a very pleasant walk back to the car, and short drive to Stalybridge station. For once, it was easy to get a table because most customers were sat outside lapping up the sunshine. We all had corned beef hash and black peas, and it was absolutely delicious, matched only by the excellent refreshing ale that we chose.
We drove back to Macc and agreed that it had been a splendid outing. Getting home by 3pm was useful, as I had a gig to prepare for - The Manatees (Unplugged) at Amuse Bar in Macclesfield. So I am now anticipating an evening playing fretless bass for blues/funk/rock/jazz music, without a drummer, but with a supper of ribs & chips. Sure beats Britain’s Got Talent - even if my brother might be on it!
Thanks to all for the calls.
Tom M1EYP
In reply to M1EYP:
Glad the EYPs had a good day and the new logbook is suitably inaugurated.
Very disappointing for Richard but I am not at all surprised. On our recent visit, even with a dipole erected on my 2m mini-mast close to the trig and using 5W the only contacts I got on 70cm FM were, improbably, Caroline & Martyn who were on the Black Mountains. Fortunately for me I remembered that I had been carrying the (unused) amplifier for the previous few activations and with that running something like 35W to the dipole (and a receive pre-amp also) I made a further six QSOs. This completed my third 70cm summit of the trip (The Cloud and Gun being the other two) just in time for us to reach the car before dark.
The intention had been to do two more (from Pendle, Fair Snape, Boulsworth, Longridge) but a careless bite during breakfast brought tears to the eyes. A retreat to home and the dentist seemed like a good idea so by 16:15 I was having a root filling instead of a speedy descent from another cloudy summit. (Sorry about the digression but some chasers may have been curious about the abrupt cancellation of our advertised third day on the Pennines.)
73,
Rod
In reply to M0JLA:
Hi Jimmy,
Well done on passing the intermediate.
Good luck with getting your full licence.
73
Liz
Thank you Liz for your comments.
Jimmy 2E0EYP
In reply to 2E0EYP:
Nice to work you with your new call today Jimmy.
I turned on my handheld at the trig point on Rombalds Moor (NP/028) and immediately I heard you calling CQ on 145.50MHz. Thank you for the S2S. It made the trip more worthwhile as I have already claimed the activator points this year.
Alex my 5yr old son seemed to enjoy his first SOTA outing and I hope he will join me on another SOTA summit in the not too distant future.
For a change, signals seemed very good on Rombald’s today - maybe it was the special RF enhancing mist 
73
Colin
M0CCGH
Hi Colin,
Thank you for the summit to summit today.
Good to hear that your son Alex enjoyed his first SOTA outing. I hope Alex joins you on some more SOTA outings and maybe he could do the Foundation course in the future to get an amateur licence and then you can activate some SOTA summits with you.
Jimmy 2E0EYP
In reply to 2E0EYP:
Hi Jimmy
Belated congrats on getting your intermediate licence. Hope to work you using it soon! I bet there’ll not be much window of opportunity before you’re using your full call
73 de Paul G4MD
Thank you Paul for your comments. I hope to work you at some point using my Intermediate callsign.
Jimmy 2E0EYP
The second activation of the shiny new 2E0EYP came just a day after the first. Richard G3CWI proposed a joint activation of The Cloud G/SP-015 for Sunday 25th March 2012, but with a teatime QRV. It suited Jimmy and I to be out earlier, so we decided to head out around 3pm and lap up some sunshine until Richard arrived on the summit.
Jimmy 2E0EYP/P enjoyed a pile-up and made 42 contacts on 2m FM. I also had a pile-up and made 45 QSOs on 20m, mainly CW, but with a few on SSB in the WPX contest. My best DX on CW were the SOTA chasers in the US and Canada, while it was Cyprus on SSB. However, strong CQ calls were heard in the SSB test from VK4, BY5, JH4 and 9M8. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get through the pile-ups for these stations with my 5 watts, but conditions were definitely good.
Richard G3CWI arrived on summit around 5.15pm and spent his time by the trig point and persisting with his 70cm HT/RD wkg condx. And in contrast to Black Hill G/SP-002 the previous day, he made some contacts, easily enough to qualify the summit - if there were any points going that is!
Two beautiful days this weekend, and two enjoyable joint treble activations. We rounded off with a pint in the Flower Pot in Macclesfield. I will be back on the summit for the 6m contest tomorrow evening - hope the weather holds!
Tom M1EYP
The third instalment in the Adventures of 2E0EYP came with the debut of that call in the UKACs on Tuesday 27th March 2012, and the first use of 50 watts from the home station. Sadly, this did not bring untold joy as hoped, but the usual abject misery. Four QSOs, all very local in IO83 square was a very similar performance for Jimmy as his previous 10 watt entries in the 6m sessions.
I, on the other hand, only had 5 watts at my disposal, but I also had a delta loop antenna and a SOTA summit - The Cloud G/SP-015. For the first two hours, things went well with a steady racking up of QSOs and multipliers, 50 contacts and 13 squares worked in total. Particularly pleasing was IO86 and IO80, as were IO64, IO72, IO94, JO01 and JO02. The other squares worked were the usual IO81, 82, 83, 91, 92 and 93.
Andy GM4JR was heard throughout the night from IO85, but very variable with QSB, and he never heard me. Neither did G0VJG in JO01, who couldn’t seem to hear a thing of the massive pile-up that was calling him at one stage.
The last half-hour proved to be desolate, with me fruitlessly chasing GM4JR and G0VJG, and looking for anything else, in vain. There were plenty of visitors on summit both before and after dark during the night, and lots of interest shown in my activity.
It was an enjoyable evening, apart from the midges, but it appears I will have to wait yet longer for my first win of 2012.
Tom M1EYP
In reply to M1EYP:
Hi Tom
Good to work you last night. Did hear Jimmy calling 55 but he wasn’t copying my puny 4W into a dipole in return 
Didn’t work as many as you, but had a great time and what was going to be a half hour play turned into staying for the whole contest! Had the same frustration with GM4JR - very nearly made it several times but didn’t get there in the end.
73 and good luck in the contest
Paul G4MD