Shetland SOTA expedition 2017

Didn’t get back to you - but you were a better signal on 20 than on 40 - less noise. Interesting skip! Thanks for the hill Paul

Thanks Andy. Due to a fortuitous stop, managed to nab you /M on the way to GM land myself.

Here’s the 20m station, glorious weather.

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Hmmm, we had skies like that in Northumberland. Summer at last. I should have taken the rig to the beach to work you, though it would have invoked the inevitable string of questions.

Pleased to see you are having a good time up there.

73, Gerald G4OIG

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Not heard a squeek from you since our CW qso on Monday. Tried listening on each band/mode combination you have announced and zilch. Perhaps should have asked you about another try on 13cm!
Unfortunately that is my operational window stuffed until Sunday

Conditions have been challenging Barry. I feel for the chasers because as an activator I can always find someone to have a QSO with from the tops even if they know nothing about SOTA. But the chasers are what makes SOTA for me, having your own pileup squad who follow you about is priceless. So when conditions are poor and the regular chasers cannot have a QSO then it it bugs me.

These summits are not activated very often, yesterday’s summit hasn’t been on the air since 2011. That’s why I picked that one yesterday rather than Vord Hill on Fetlar which Bill G4WSB activated 2 years back. Also I was in HU58 square, Brian G4ZRP had asked me to do that square as a WAB activation if there was no summit there because he wanted it so much as well as many other WABers.

Yesterday’s activation alone was worth all the cost of the ferry,hotels,food,diesel especially when I saw more of the regular chaser calls appearing in the log. The only limits to yesterday was battery capacity and the midges. I didn’t know they had them here, about 80% as aggressive as Highland Midges. It was them caused me to give up. Smidge stopped them biting but the air was so thick with them it was hard not to breathe them in! Midge net was in the car :frowning: They were out in force last night, the sheep on the farm I am staying on were bellowing as they were eaten alive. I expected to see a field of skeletons this morning.

No activations today, I was thinking I could sneak something in but it’s too tight with the ferry times, so I’ll do some tourist stuff. 5 days here doesn’t let you scratch the surface of things to see and do never mind SOTA activations.

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G0FEX
Hi Andy
Well done on the activation, always a pleasure to catch you on a summit, enjoy the tourist bit & a safe trip home.
Cheers Ken

There are 4 cruise ships in Lerwick today, the place is really busy. One of the ships is one of those new generation super cuise liners. A huge palace in white standing several stories above the water. Makes the ferry to Aberdeen look like a small dinghy!

Nice - and I have a thunderstorm…

Nice to get you whilst /A at the in-laws in Dorset, Andy. SOTA setup in the garden, but posh swing seat beats normal summit comforts. Deep QSB but made it ok to me and Helen. OY next then? :slight_smile:

Simon

Thanks for all the lovely sota’s collected last few days.

Just need to confirm when in GM/SI-197 Yell island and was at end of the AZ in HU-58 with no trig as it was further down the way. did You do the trig afterwards. Some peoples just question this as you said on air the AZ covers two squares.Just needs verifying ta

PS nice to get you on testing out the CW40 in garden when I did, seems working ok now doing the extensions for CW80 duel CW antenna for portable uses.

Thanks again karl

Still lots of Shetland summits and islands to bag. And Orkney. Hope to get some OK an OM summits next.

Queuing for ferry…

I was in HU58 at the trig. The AZ is huge so the trig is in the AZ but not at the true summit, 8
I think I was 7m below the top.

The reason for operating there is to give the trig to trig hunters and to give HU58 away. Peter (from Peterhead) MM3PDM did a big WAB run in Shetland a few months back but missed HU58 so it was a wanted square.

Your 10w limit wasn’t an issue as you were far enough away for 40m to work for you when the slip was long. Not loud but daily workable pm the very noise free summits up here.

Brill thanks again andy

karl

Thanks Ken and to everyone else who wished me a good trip. I’ve been back 15mins now (1505 BST 19-aug) and I feel I have been travelling since last century. Well I left the B&B on Yell at 930BST 18-aug and apart from some sightseeing on the way to and in Lerwick and a quick bonus activation on the way home, I have been moving continuously. Not always forwards, there was quite alot of up and down and side to side for the first 4 hours. Flat as mill pond after that. First load of washing is on, I have to see if I get all my gear stowed away and the rest of the washing done before Mrs. FMF gets back from her trip at about 1700BST. Extra brownie points on offer :slight_smile:

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#Shetland: Getting There

I took the ferry from Aberdeen on Sunday. The ferry sails at 1700 and docks at Kirkwall, Orkney at 2300 and sails and finally docks at Lerwick, Shetland at 700 the next morning. Aberdeen is about 2.5hrs drive from here. I was going to do some bagging on the way up but was thinking we sailed at 1900 not 1700 so I decided not to rush. As it’s an overnight sailing you are encouraged to get a cabin berth. You can either share a cabin or hire one exclusively and they’re not cheap. Next is a sleeping pod. This is a reclining chair, much like an aircraft seat and includes a USB power socket, a free shower, blanket etc. Then you can reserve a recling lounge seat which is cheap. Or you can doss on the floor which many did.

I took a pod which was comfy and quiet. The lounges had lots of people milling about but the pod rooms were tranquil. I slept surprisingly well considering this was the longest voyage I’ve ever done. But we did have water that was, too use a schoolboy expression, as flat as Suzi Quattro! As usual with anything to do with my countrymen, the bar was packed with people trying to drink the bar dry. Hmmm, they must be regulars.

Costs are eyewatering but RET (road equivalent tarrifs) are being introduced from January which will just about half the cost.
Adult fare £41
Sleep Pod £18
Car <5.5m £146

So that’s £205. Oh and you want to come back so that’s another £205 making £410 before fuel, food, accomodation etc. Yikes!

Leaving Aberdeen on a calm and tranquil evening. Lots of North Sea Oil boats at anchor.

14hours later, arriving in Bressay Sound. The towers are at the summit of Ward Of Bressay GM/SI-188 on the island of Bressay.

A view of old Lerwick. Yes, the water was that smooth all the way from Aberdeen, I couldn’t believe my luck.

I had thought about topping up the HiLux’s fuel tank in Aberdeen but I had over 3/4 of tank (60+ litres) so I thought I’d be fine. Fuel seems to be about 10p/L more than back on the Scottish mainland. As soon as I was off the ferry, I found a cafe that was open for breakfast. You can unload your car and go back on board the ferry for breakfast but I was hoping a Lerwick cafe would be cheaper. I found a wonderful greasy spoon full of workman and had what seemed like half a pig in a roll and a mug of Rosy Lea for about £3.50. I did get a funny look from some guys going in when I was sat outside in the HiLux with syringe sticking out of me as I shot up an early morning mix of diabetic drugs!

After that it was off for the first summit of the day. WX was quite mild, not too windy and a lot of blue sky. This was not going to last. Heavy rain forecast for lunchtime onwards for 24hrs.

#Scrae Field GM/SI-194

This is so easy. Park at Easter Quarff Village Hall, space for 10+ cars and follow the wire fence up the hill by the side of the hall. The ground was a bit soft but nothing horrible. At the end of the fence just aim up and within minutes you’re on the top and can wander to the trig point. Takes about 35mins if that.

The views are quiet excellent. Lots of Shetland is scrabby mooreland with peat and bogs. But the crinkly bits at the edges and the islands off shore are simply killer. It’s pretty even when raining, and it did plenty of that.

The trig point. Even by now the WX was slowly changing as cloud built up.

Looking back down to Easter Quarff, the village hall is the building with the blue roof with a tiny white vehicle parked by it.

Looking NW. This shows the typically horrible ground to be found over large parts of Shetland. The towers are at Hill of Shurton and Lerwick is directly behind that hill.

Oh, and this beauty was visible. The Isle of Foula some 44kms West of Scrae Field. Getting to Foula can be challenging, there are boats and planes but they are very dependant on the weather and regularly get cancelled. Much like Fair Isle services. You need to stay on Shetland for at least 2 weeks if not longer to be sure of getting a weather window to visit these places. Still looks brilliant with 2 ever so wanted SOTA summits on there, Da Noup GM/SI-183 is at the left and Da Sneug GM/SI-103 is big peak in the middle.

Activity was on 60m/40m and I worked 19 stations. It was slow to some traffic due to poor HF conditions and the fact I was active early. However, I didn’t have time to waste, I wanted to get to the next summit as it was drive on capable and I had skeds for 13cms with GM4TOE/p GM4BYF/p and GM4COX/p and the WX was going to get worse.

Damn fine first summit. It started to feel like the cost was worth it. Well seeing Foula was the highlight.

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#Ward of Scouburgh GM/SI-171

This summit is about 20km South of Scrae Field. Better, it’s a drive on summit and as I wanted to try some 13cms with people in NE Scotland this meant I could take bigger antennas with me. The road to the summit is open to the public and is tarmac all the way. Apart from the potholes. This is an important site for comms into and out of Shetland with links to Fair Isle and Orkney. It used to be home to enormous (100ft diameter) fixed troposcatter dishes to communicate with North Sea Oil rigs. It was home to an Ace High station. This was a troposcater NATO comms link providing multiple phone and RTTY channels from The Faroes to Turkey. All done with 50kW on 950MHz into 100ft to 150 ft dishes. Now all replaced with fibre links.

Here’s a photo of the old dishes from the 1980s

and the routes the the troposcatter links is here

All gone now and no longer secret. The dishes still remain at the RAF Stenigot site (UBIZ) but laying on the ground. All that remains in Shetland are the crumbling concrete bases. Photos from the Ace High History Journel website.

The road is drivable in any car with care. In a few places there are big potholes, nig enough that I took them slowly in the pickup. I drove right to the top and along to the BT tower. There is a huge pothole/trenh across the road here and I had a look and poke with a walking stick before driving across. I parked up so as to get the best take off for 13cms.

I had one of those drive on mast bases and 10ft of mast for it. Also I had a Wimo 67ele 13cms Yagi which is about 3m long, plus a run of Andrew LDF 4-50 and numerous N to SMA connectors, my normal 13cms feeder (3m RF-400UF) and a 2m length of RG-400. If I drove the pickup onto the mast stand then the antenna was part of the car and I could be a SOTA chaser but not an activator. I looked about and found a large rock that I could just roll and used that to hold the base in place. 20mins later I was QRV for 13cms. There was then many a phone call to arrange with the sked partners.

Barry GM4TOE was just outside his QTH in Banff, Pete GM4BYF was up on the moors above Wick and Jack GM4COX was on The Cheviot. I don’t know what Barry was using for antennas / PA as he has some “big stuff” for the shack. Pete was running 100W into a 1.8m offset dish from a DB6NT transverte. Jack had his 20+ele Yagi and SG Labs transverter at about 1.5W. Jack could hear GB3CSB loud where he was but all 3 had rubbish WX with wind and rain. I didn’t have the rain yet but could see if coming in. The wind was quite gusty now. We tried and tried but there was no luck. The rain was probably a major factor in breaking any chance of a QSO. Still, if you don’t try you’ll never find out if the path works. So I don’t consider it a waste of time and effort to try. Though I did have to put up with that damn Yagi in pieces rattling in the car for a week! I could have put it in the pickup but the door lock is broken and I didn’t want to end up with the door more broken and me in Shetland. During a call with Jack I managed to drop my phone screen first onto the rock holding the antenna in place. Many rude words shouted. Luckily the cheap screen protector (5 for £2.50) did its job. It was wrecked but on fitting a new one when home, there wasn’t a mark on the LCD itself.

After this I grabbed the HF gear and set up by the trig for a quick 40m session. I worked 6 with difficulty and would have worked more but the rain started. I grabbed the electronis and rushed back to the pickup. It was on and off for the next 30 mins and ever dry spell I’d go and dismantle and collect gear. There was enough wind to dry most stuff in between the showers.

That was that for the day. Even if we had no luck on this summit, Fitful Head was a possible. This is another SOTA summit you can drive to if the gate is unlocked. It’s a much better 13cms site. It does have an RADAR SSR antenna here but that is RX only on 1090MHz. If I was driveable I’d have tried 13cms again with the Wimo Yagi. But if it was walk only I’d have used the small bowtie antenna.

As it was the heavens opened. So Fitful Head remains for another time. The rain had arrived and boy can it rain up here. I drove down the hill having photographed the desolate state the buildings are in and slowly made my way half way up the island to the B&B.

This is a classic BT style installation with 4GHz and 6GHz links to Fair Isle, Orkney to the South and more BT sites to the North. My 13cms operations were from near the front of those big dishes.

Ward of Scousburgh trig point.

One of several tower bases/guy points. There have been antennas up here since WWII. Lots have been dismantled but the junk remains everywhere. Decaying concrete, lengths of tower, old rusty metal and dish mounts. It’s a grim place to be honest but and easy SOTA summit. There was no noise on 40m for anyone coming this way.

More abandonned buildings and antenna bases. Acres of junk up here.

I expected some bad weather whilst here and I was impressed with how much water can fall out of the sky and continued to fall till lunchtime the next day. I also learnt the MetOffice website forescasts are damn good for here. The next 6hr will be very accurate. 12hrs quite accurate and 24hrs reaonably accurate. There’s no point making plans beyond as the WX changes so quickly after a day.

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#Mid Ward GM/SI-215

When I was selecting summits, I chose the ones that had trig points were possible so that there would be interest not just from regualr SOTA chasers but also WAB square and trig collectors. There is considerable cross-over interest between the groups so anything to increase the number of chasers is well worth while. Mid Ward summit does not have a trig point, the trig is at South Ward, some 500m South. Activating from the true summit would not be valid for WAB trigs. However, South Ward does have the trig. Careful consideration of the 1:25000 map and many pictures shows that South Ward is in the Mid Ward AZ, so an activation from the trig is valid for WAB trig awards and SOTA. Result!

The day started with torrential rain to such a volume that it would have surprised Noah! I took a trip back to Lerwick, at one point it was so heavy, double speed wipers were not enough and I pulled off the road for a few minutes. In Lerwick I wandered about the town and museum. I also visited the Peerie Cafe down by the harbour. The vibe in here is really good, lovely coffee and food. The 2 times I visited the place it was busy. I was mistaken for George Clooney by a bunch of lovely ladies which made me and them happy. Though they did say the next stop on their tour was a visit to Specsavers. After wandering the archives looking for info on relatives from the past I noticed the rain had stopped. Just as predicted. I made my way back up the island and turned off over the small bridge to the island of Muckle Roe.

By the time I got here it was still lashing down with rain and I made my way round the South of the island to Muckle Roe hall, a place I had spied from Google Streetview as having plenty of parking space near to the start of the track up the hill. There are 2 good tracks that climb almost to the summit, the one on the South of the island has parking and lots of it. I’m sure I could have found somewhere at the other track but the walking seemed the same from each start so this was the logical choice. Twenty minutes in the pickup eating an apple and some peanuts and the rain stopped. Another 5 mins and there were patches of blue sky.

It’s about 300m from the hall parking to the track start. The track has numerous gates, some easy to open and some chained. But the track is good and obvious and despite the rain, was well drained. It was simple walking and soon I was at the end of the track. From here there’s 500m walking across the moor till the substantial shelter appears with a trig point inside. An easy 45min stroll if that.

The WX improved all the time but it was now quite blustery, more so than Monday. I set up and went on the air. 40m SSB was OK but I was unable to raise a single chaser on 40m CW. The skip was jumping between short and long and then nothing. 30m was much better, I managed a QSO with Phil G4OBK at about 425miles. I did spend a lot of time calling CQ but 18 QSOs was the limit.

The rest of the time was soaking up the views as the WX improved.

This was the view halfway up the track, looking at the sparse building density on Muckle Roe. The small island is Linga.

The Drongs. Just some of the many rocks and islets around the coast. If you go in a straight from here through The Drongs, you pass over Esha Ness in Shetland and then continuing, you pass North of The Faores, North of Iceland and have to keep going to Greenland before the next landfall!

Sullem Voe Oil Terminal, some 20km away. Old Shetland made a fortune from Herring Fishing. But this has been the source of the money up here for the last 30+ years. The fact there is so much revenue and hence tax income, is why the roads up here are incredibly well maintained.

The substantial shelter, the sun letting the rocks show their hues.

A view of The Bottoms. More of the Shetland ground you want to avoid, especially after 24hrs non-stop heavy rain.

Return was the route in reverse. The sky was not really playing from propagation but I was learning the WX forecast accuracy. At this point it was for some rain/showers before dawn and generally intermittent sunny weather for all of the next day. Which was good, I had 2 more ferries to catch to get to Unst.

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#More Ferries

The next targets were on the islands of Yell, Unst & Fetlar. In the end Fetlar got dumped due to ferry times, there are not too many sailings and it all looked a bit difficult. However, I had to get from Mainland to Unst for today. The inter isalnd ferries are quite canny in the pricings. If you get the ferry from Mainland to Yell and then from Yell to Unst on the same day, you only pay the Mainland-Yell fare. This means the 4 ferry trips (Mainland-Yell, Yell-Unst and returns) cost £3.32 each. Bargain!

I was up early to grab an early ferry to Yell. Then it was a dash across Yell to get the Unst ferry to maximise my time on Unst. It was showery and blustery.

The Yell ferry, a boat that is sharp at both ends!

One island ferry (20mins) and 30mins driving later, the Unst ferry, a boat with a sharp and blunt end.

There was a 30min wait before the ferry sailed from Gutcher, Yell.

Local boats at Gutcher.

Waiting for the ferry, the showers now cleared and it was warming up but still cool with the wind.

A large fishing boat pasing Bluemull Sound. Valla Field GM/SI-195 is on the ridge behind.

Approaching Bluemull, Unst

Impressive cliffs on the West coast of Unst.

WX getting better and better all the time. Just like the forecast said it would!

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