Caroline M3ZCB and Martyn M1MAJ have been absent from the SOTA activating scene since March 2020. At that time we had to stop for the COVID lockdown, and had to cancel 3 holidays that were booked at the time. Unfortunately family circumstances prevented us from getting away again when travel was once more permitted, until now.
In the meantime, we have both retired, me in September in 2020 and Caroline in September 2022. In principle this gives us lots of free time but somehow we seem busier than ever! We have been doing our best to keep fit by walking and cycling locally, but I fear that we are rather out of practice at climbing hills with a load.
We have booked a week in the Lake District from tomorrow, 8th Sep, followed by a long weekend near Lytham St Annes, so we hope to activate as many G/LD and G/SP summits as we can manage. There wonāt be any that we havenāt activated before.
Well done.
All I can say about the fitness thing is its probably guna hurt.
If you are both hiking together maybe split up the kit among 2 back packs and share on the hill. Enjoy the comeback to SOTA and the better propagation on the higher bands.
Regards
Ian vk5cz ā¦
Totally agree Barry. It was far easier to organise an outing when I ran my own business and was working 60 hours a week. Now time just seems to evaporate!
Hopefully catch you sometime during the weekā¦ hopefully!
I forgot to say that we should be trackable as M1MAJ on APRS. The track points are sent from my inReach every 10 mins or so, and gatewayed into APRS on a Raspberry Pi at home.
Now exhausted after a successful activation of G/LD-023, an about 10 mile round trip up over Carrock Fell from āApronfull of Stonesā and back via Mosedale.
We used our normal technique of Martyn starting on HF and me on 2m FM and also trying to get 70cms contacts. Martyn only got 2 contacts on 5Mhz, but did better on 7Mhz including 2 S2S which I grabbed too. I ended up with 10 on 2m and 4 on 70cms.
Future activations depend on weather and legs!
Sorry we donāt tend to alert as our timings are usually off and sometimes we donāt decide which summit to do until on the road. As it was we were much later on the summit than I had hoped.
Today was a washout due to thunderstorms and tomorrow isnāt looking promising. Depending on forecast we may try a Mell Fell.
Great to see you are back in business - we have missed you and hoped that you would soon be able to return and join in the āfunā! We too are struggling to get back fitness after only a 3+ month layoff (caused probably by overdoing it on little Scottish hills in May -and some of my problems remain) so we were only attempting small summits near Dolgellau last weekend but even those were a challenge - especially in the heat. The last hill I did on our Scottish trip was Great Mell Fell and it may have been a mistake as it is steepā¦ and goes on a bit! I recommend the smaller one!!
Hope to get some s2s in due course but do take it gently.
73 Viki
I hadnāt noticed that you and Rod had been absent Viki - probably due to how busy Iāve been myself with work and family life. But welcome back, and great to have the S2S with you at the weekend.
Mind you, Iād not even properly spotted that Martyn and Caroline had been absent for 3.5 years - but thatās probably because Iāve been following their Cambridgeshire hikes on social media, and therefore my brain still had them as āactiveā.
Where does the time go? Iāve been doing SOTA for 40% of my lifetime now. Jimmy for two thirds of his! Thereās a Foundation tier GCSE maths question in there somewhereā¦
Indeed. I have just realised that tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of my first SOTA activation (just me, Caroline wasnāt licenced then).
Today I was finally able to do what my MG activation should have been. It was nearly 12 years ago when we got to the end of a holiday in LD with me on 990 points. Weād already done the other 2 10-pointers, so it had to be Helvellyn on our journey home. Well we did it, and Iād optimistically taken the HF gear up, but the conditions at the top were atrocious. No views at all - could barely see the trig point from the shelter (which was nevertheless occupied). It had to be a hit and run on 2m. It got me my MG, but it was otherwise a very disappointing activation.
Todayās activation of Helvellyn was much better, and we were able to stay a reasonable time and do 5 bands between us.
Just heard Caroline @M3ZCB on 70cms on G/SP-007, right in the noise, from my home QTH south of Shrewsbury - I was quite surprised to be able to hear her from 144km away (according to Google maps!), but alas she faded out and it was not enough to able to attempt a QSO. Incidentally I couldnāt hear her at all on 2m when she switched frequencies. 70cms does some wonderful things sometimesā¦
