Not really. It’s a “moving day” - from holiday accommodation in Berwick to holiday accommodation in Fife - so the chances of me activating a summit within the OARC activity window are rather slim unfortunately.
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Fair dos. Well, maybe hear you chasing if you get some off-time.
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Tom,
I wanted to ask you about Gun, particularly getting parked up, also is the ground there ok for a ground spike (first option) - Sliderwinder DX, or a rotary washing pole like spike the latter would be for a 10M windjammer pole, and a Band Hopper IV both are too heavy to be guyed alone?
I normally only do 2/70 so this will be one of the first attempts at HF
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Plenty of parking opposite the start of the footpath to Gun summit. Plenty of soft ground compatible with most antenna/mast options!
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Can’t see anyone on the Cloud on Saturday, there are two G5s on Bardon Hill though!
Hi Paul, okay, weird that when I looked at the map link when this is first posted you were not on Gun, and the re was a G5 on Cloud?? I take it gets altered and updated as things change.
I will look at it on a regular basis, thanks for the heads up
Tony
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Well my local Bardon Hill was taken, I chose Gun because the Cloud had gone or so I thought, I’ve never done Gun before and have been wanting to do it.
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There may have been a change, I’ve been updating the table on our wiki and somebody else has been updating the map as changes came in and folk changed their plans and changed summits. Honestly can’t remember, though.
Well, this is this week! I am nervous but hopefully it will all go well. Time to start checking the weather and keeping our fingers crossed. And I really hope our first time activators have fun and decide to stay with the programme. As well as promoting OARC to everyone it was also my chance to promote SOTA to OARC members as well and hope that some of them stick around to do more activating. Indeed, in preparation for Saturday several of our members have gone out and activated their first summits, so that is a nice win already.
I’m proud that we’ll have so many modes and types of operation as well, although I am particularly sad about that little gap around Yorkshire/Lancashire way, sadly I couldn’t persuade anyone from that neck of the woods to take part.
We’re also lucky to have Ellen MI0XAX taking part who produces a lot of content for both YouTube and TikTok and has done a lot to promote amateur radio, and she’ll hopefully be making a nice video of the day if we all send her our stuff. Really looking forward to that part.
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I’ve got other plans in the morning but I’ll try and get up a GW/NW summit just after lunchtime, possibly Hope Mountain.
Hi @2M0IIG Mark, I hope your keeping well! This sounds a great idea what you have/are organising! I’m keen to support your event, so all being well, I have alerted ‘Gwastedyn Hill’ GW/MW-019, ‘Rhiw Gwraidd’ GW/MW-024 and maybe ‘Carn Gafallt’ GW/MW-024 to do this Saturday, hope to be on the first summit for 9am BST with every band to try!
I really hope you have some great success and don’t feel nervous, everything will run perfect (famous last words 
) Good luck and hope to make a few contacts with your OARC group!
73, GW4BML. Ben
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Just to make everyone aware, I have changed my “summit” for the SOTA day activation, to G/SP-009 Hail Storm Hill. this is due to me being a numpty, and forgetting i actually said i was going to do freeholds top, and possibly Hail storm, and then planning my whole day around Hail storm 
Oh well, never mind!! Still might do freeholds yet afterwards, see how i am for time 
Cheers Chaps
Alan
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Sadly, the weather is looking a bit iffy for tomorrow, so I will only bring 2 m capabilities and I might have to cancel at short notice if the promised thunderstorms haven’t cleared by then.
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I’ve lost count recently of the short time or last minute cancellations I have made, this country’s WX is getting less predictable especially if you plan well in advance as you guys have. If you do get up , hope you have fun
73 Tony
Thanks! Yes, it’s always annoying when the weather changes just when you want to do something weather-dependent. I wouldn’t mind the gusts and potential showers, but I’m not going to hang about on a summit if there is a risk of thunder!
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Sorry, I’m cancelling my activation as this is lookinh less and less pleasant. Hope 5he rest of you are having better luck!
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Well we did it. A fair few of us activated our hills. I managed to defeat my nemesis activate G/SC-010 Dundry Down in spite of interruptions from dog walkers (always happy to chat to anyone up a hill), failing batteries, lost log sheets and impending rain.
I’ll write up an activation report in due course, but a big shout out to @2M0IIG - Mark for organising it, and all the other activators and chasers. Good work all!
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I, on the other hand, activated my hill, despite it being too windy to put the pole up. HT and Ducky instead. But then I fell pretty badly coming down and when I sat to catch my breath I put the HT on the ground…
…and then got a mile away and realised I’d left it. In pain already I decided to push on and I’ve told a few folk heading the other way to keep an eye out. 130 quid of 868 lost. I was in way too much pain to walk back uphill a mile or so.
I’m glad everyone else had fun (some are still going strong) but really it wasn’t my favourite SOTA outing.
Edit: an offer of help means someone is on their way up to look for it. This community is lovely sometimes.
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I was late to the S2S party (no surprise there you may say…) so I think I missed most of the stations.
I was helping out at a sports event in the morning which started late, dragged on a bit, and after spending an hour helping to pack/tidy up after the main organiser had said “see ya, I’ve got to go” I decided to leave as well.
Hope Mountain was only round the corner and when I arrived at the summit (after getting permission from the farmer) the weather was perfect for a SOTA activation and leaving my waterproofs and the storm shelter in the car seemed like the right choice, it’s only 10-15 minutes walk from the car park.
(GB3CR in the background)
I started off just using the replacement HT to give it a bit of a test. Signal reports were generally poor, improved slightly if I stood on the trig but that made it precarious to write in the log. First in the log was @2E0JWA (the only OARC station I managed to get) with a summit to summit although he could barely make me out.
Weather was still good so after the first 5 contacts I tried putting up a new dipole antenna that I had built and needed to test but it had broken already in transit (test failed I guess) so it was onto the regular dipole on the 6m pole.
The wind blew me and the pole over mid QSO so I had to telescope it down to about 4m and hug it for the rest of the activation. It was only 20 minutes after arriving at the summit but the weather had started to take a turn for the worse - heavy showers were visible all round however most were blowing around the hill so I was OK for a bit longer.
WIthin 5 minutes the sky had darkened and the wind picked up significantly so decided to call it quits although @M0RWX jumped in with a last second summit to summit and it probably sounded like I was on my way to Oz at that point.
I quickly packed everything away ready to head back to the car but every time I moved out from the shelter of the trig point I got soaked by the horizontal rain so decided to stay put and stay dry! After 5-10 minutes the storm subsided and I made my escape. By the time I was back at the car, the sun was out again 
Lesson learned - always take a coat!
Thanks for organising the event and look forward to the next one.
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Welcome to the “leaving a HT on the summit” club. Did you get it back?
Maybe they can go and check for mine on Rhinog Fawr
Hope you’ve not hurt yourself too badly.
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