[The Independent] “Blue passports could have been re-introduced without Brexit; Government admits”
It’s a myth [a lie?] – one of many - propagated by Brexiteers during the run-up to the Brexit referendum that we could not have kept or at anytime reintroduced the old-style blue UK passports. There is no EU directive insisting on the burgundy coloured one. Croatia has a blue one.
It’s sad that so many count this as one of the ‘freedoms’ we now enjoy post Brexit.
Thread meander…
@M0WIV I rebuilt my QCX-mini 17m several weeks ago, using a T37-6 core for the BPF / phase splitter. The rig seemed to align OK and seems to inhale signals. I don’t have an antenna at home, so I’ve been meaning to do a SOTA activation to test the QCX.
Since I did Ben Nevis, for some reason I’ve been feeling rather low, I’m not sure why. I have been wanting to test my QCX-17 but I just haven’t had the enthusiasm to get out for SOTA. I haven’t even had the enthusiasm to get out for my daily walks. I’d been doing 10,000 steps a day for a couple of months before Ben Nevis.
@M0NOM yes, it’s great to look at the views, if they’re on offer, whilst auto CQ’ing or just head copying the pleasantries. Part of the reason I haven’t done SOTA for a while has been the weather, even when it’s been sunny this month it seemed quite cold. Yesterday was a beautiful day for my son’s birthday, we went to Carlisle to meet the famous springer spaniels Paddy and Harry from Keswick. Kerry, the owner of the dogs, was the guest of honour cutting the cake for the 20th birthday of Great Northern Air Ambulance Service.
We also saw the Northern Belle train, pulled by Tangmere, a West Country & Battle of Britain class loco, bathed in glorious sunshine.
Whilst I was driving back, my wife got a message from her sister (my sister-in-law) to say that she’d just done Helvellyn (G/LD-003). Later yesterday evening I recieved a message from Alex @G7KSE saying that he believed that he’d met an in-law of mine on Helvellyn! I confirmed to Alex that yes, I did hear my wife comment that her sister had been on Helvellyn. Apparently my sister in law had recognised Alex’s activity and mentioned me and SOTA to him. Alex was able to piece together the information and identify me as the person alluded to! Seems like I missed a good opportunity to do SOTA yesterday, but I had a good day in any case.
Sorry for the thread wander… 
Hopefully some good weather will coincide with an activation opportunity soon and I’ll be back out in the hills.
73, Colin
Oh BTW, I’ve used Robot Birds for LiPos for the past few times, they always seem to have something on offer. I use one of their own brand 800mAh 3S lipos for my MTRs etc. https://www.robotbirds.co.uk/chargers-power-supply-leads/lipo-nimh/lipo-packs-3-cell.html
Well done for changing a toroid. For reasons which now seem silly I tried changing a QCX from 30m to 40m. There were not a lot of components which needed changing but I found the de-soldering a real challenge. I’ve only got a spring loaded syringe but getting it to reach the tight spaces was difficult. I had to remove components in a few places to gain access. If I did it again I would buy a new syringe with a smaller end, mine is a bit melted.
Nice report- and thanks for the S2S with
David
Sad about the UKs Hobbyking battery supply stopping, I didn’t know that but was aware than many small/medium companies no longer import here now due to Brexit red tape, admin and extra customs charges. The Brexit vote was won on lies, supposition and political ambition and so many of the British people fell for it.
Thanks to Mark for the interesting Lake District activation report, and sorry to hear about the deer. I hope the car is not too badly marked.
73 Phil
Thanks for the writeup and excellent photos. Bad luck about the deer altercation. Here it is kangaroos and they can be a real hazard.
73’s Wal VK2WP
Hobbyking do ship to the UK but from the Hong Kong warehouse. To send a lithium battery costs about £40.
For single activations the 370mAh is adequate:
The Turnigy Graphene 450mAh is very tempting:
That would last you a few days probably. When I’m overseas, I use 4 18650 cells and a buck converter. They can then be charged in one of those powerpack boxes off Amazon:
That said, I’ve never had to charge the cells, even once.
73 de Matt
You’re not alone. I spend a lot of time and effort on SOTA [I can as I’m a retiree] but sometimes I lose enthusiasm. Who knows why? Sometimes I think it’s looking outside at the gloomy weather [though I’ve noticed once I’m outside I usually enjoy it even in the rain].
Anyway, I’ve concluded this is normal human behaviour so just give it time, do something else for a while, and the enthusiasm will come back. Sometimes, reading someone’s activation reports [including yours] gets me fired for another trip.
Don’t apologize for going a bit off-topic – I do it a lot despite those who chide me and others for doing so. In my view critics can always skip over such posts. And someone will bring it back on topic if that thread has any more life in it. I often find the off-topic posts the most interesting bits.
P.S. Nice dogs
That’s the exact battery that I bought on 1st July 2014. I paid £6.50 for it, shipped. I still use the battery with my MTRs and I can confirm that it has plenty of capacity for an activation, in fact it can power several activations.
I got the 800mAh battery more recently because it was dirt cheap and to be honest, whilst it’s twice the size of the 370mAh battery, it’s still conveniently small.
It is good to know there are alternative outlets in the UK for LiPo batteries.
For the most part now when operating QRO I will take the Ultramax 22AH LifePo4 rather than the HobbyKing 4200maH LifePo4s I have. The Ultramax has a carrying handle and I find it spreads the load a bit rather than it being all on my back.
In the UK yourfpv or hobbyrc may also be an option.
Mark.
I find the same as you Andy. SOTA distractions - I will not allow the SOTA addiction to rule my life! As a long time retiree chasing from home this keeps me interested in SOTA generally, but other things take precedance to that, such as DIY work in the home, walking and cycling without SOTA, gardening, voluntary committee work for other organisations I am involved with and if there is a new band slot for the DXCC challenge active that I need to work, I ditch the SOTA chasing and concentrate on that.
I have little interest in activating in the UK now unless I am on a targeted holiday in that area where there are some uniques, but these are over 200+ miles away now for me, so day visits with 7-9 hours driving involved, walking/climbing/activating for several hours on top of that are getting too much.
I think from now on the majority of activating I do will fit around my holidays wherever I am.
73 Phil
Hi Phil, I agree with you on having a range of interests outside of SOTA and amateur radio especially on retirement. [I was warned many men go off the rails when they lose their sense of purpose gained from their careers – Not me!]
That’s where we differ a bit: you seem more competitive, more ‘SOTA points’ orientated, “Done that, got the tee shirt” so to speak.
I’m happy to re-walk and re-activate many summits every year or more often. It helps that I don’t have to drive far to many lovely G/LD, G/NP and G/SP summits. Same with the Wainwrights on the Air (WOTA) programme: I’ll probably never activate them all but may have great pleasure doing the nice ones many times.
I have discovered this aspect to activating. I like being the DX, so I now activate Scald Law GM/SS-125 as it is local and a decent 45mins exercise again and again. And chasers still chase me. New summits are nice but they’re all getting some distance from home now. There’s plenty of summits I’ve activated once to do again. And plenty to never go near again! YMMV.
As I don’t have a home station, SOTA activations are a way for me to get on air. I’m not really after points these days so much, although I would like to reach 2xMG in the long term.
I’m happy to do the same summits again and again, it’s always different because I often use a different radio depending upon my goals for that day, for example chasing a specific activator.
Great report Mark!
Sorry to hear about the deer. Last time I hit one in the 110 it went straight under, with no damage to the vehicle.
A week later I hit a pheasant and it knocked the headlamp out…
It was a bit weird to actually find someone who knew about SOTA on a summit, even more so when you’ve met that person a few weeks earlier at the hallowed grounds of the luxurious Norbreck Castle hotel (& Spa - well its got an empty fountain out front).
You’ll get your mojo back Colin, always good to step away for a while rather than forcing it.
Perhaps we should have a mountain topper day. I could join in and help to lower the quality of CW
Thanks for that info Richard. I did a few tests from the EU site thinking maybe just batteries that was the problem but I couldn’t find anything they’d ship from the EU warehouse. HK warehouse seems fine, dangerous goods shipping prices excepted!
It’s not SOTA that’s the issue, I have an appetite for that, it’s just other everyday stuff. 
Anyway, had a better couple of days, I got into the shack and I’ve rebuilt my Hill Top 20 yet another time, it’s a rig that I’ve been struggling with for a while. The Hill Top 20 is a prototype of the later 4SQRP Hilltopper rigs. I’ve tried many different things to improve the receiver on my rig. I’ve swapped the ICs, tried different ICs, changed the op amp gain set resistors, etc etc. This time I’ve put a few things back to the schematic values and put in a brand new RF attenuator pot (AF gain is fixed, level varied by attenuating incoming RF signal).
Yesterday I swapped some capacitors on my home brew SST to try to widen the crystal IF filter a bit, it was a bit difficult to get access but I didn’t want to remove the lower half of the case in order to protect all of the off-board wiring. I managed to swap the four capacitors with a bit of patience.
I also went inside my QRPme Micro 20 and swapped the headphone jack, so now the audio is in both ears instead of just one! I made up the name Micro 20, as the rig was meant to be a four band rig based on Oleg Borodin’s Micro 80. The “QRPme US/RU Micro 80/4” didn’t work due to cross talk in the wiring to the switch that switched the 4 crystals. Adding a bank of relays kind of spoilt the idea, didn’t work and increased the cost significantly. I re-used the relays in my BITX20 SSB rig. The Micro 80/4 never made it as a general release kit. Last year I decided that it was a shame to have a broken rig sat on the shelf for so many years, so I put together a single band version for 20m by cutting out all of the additional band stuff. I’ve ended up with a Pixie type rig putting out about 250-300mW. The AF transistors are Russian, they’re green!
An MTR activity day would be interesting, I think there’s been something similar in the past, but I don’t think it was SOTA based. I seem to recall that the activity was for ATS rigs too. I guess it would take a small bit of organising like the rest of SOTA activity days - name a date and put a post on the SOTA reflector! (And hope that some folk join in.)
73, Colin
