SOTA LD Weekend, 7th/8th October 2023

[MM0FMF]

@M0NOM

it will be mild and damp.

That’s what the MetOffice forecast suggests. Considerably wetter up here. I was going to wander up something to see if I could bag an S2S or two but not in what looks like Noah’s Ark weather

[G6PJZ]

Nice here 🏉

But no SOTA

Enjoy the weekend and I hope to join you on the next one

[2I0WMN]

Mid Ulster ARC will be operating from Carrigatuke summit GI/CA-003 tomorrow from approx 12.00 utc we will be using individual calls activating 2/70 and HF and using club call MN0IFG

[M0JKS]

Hi Mark, sadly I cannot make it all the way up to the Lake District this weekend. My wife needs to visit her father in hospital in Chorley - so needs the car. After some negotiation, she has agreed to abandon me at the base of Winter Hill (G/SP-010) on route so I can still play radio tomorrow.

73 Dave

[N6JFD]

well, I can attest that today was some serious Class II fun, athough probably just a normal day for you all :). 30-40mph on the Ridge between Haweswater and Patterdale. Only had to brace myself a few times. Wets were soaked through before we started the walk up Kitske Pike. Needless to say I skipped High Stiles to focus on navigating us down. MET seems to think it will be cloudly and slightly windy up high tomorrow?

[M0NOM]

Viewing Forecast For

Lake District
Saturday 7th October 2023
Last updated Fri 6th Oct 23 at 4:30PM

Summary for all mountain areas

A stationary front over the Highlands - constant heavy rain, at times torrential in SW areas; flooding. Cold enough for sleet or wet snow on higher tops, especially north. Less wet in far north & south of Scotland. Eng & Wales: Powerful gusty winds, a little rain Lakes, otherwise dry; Wales very warm on hills above an inversion.

Headline for Lake District

Windy, gales and powerful gusts on fells. Light rain on and off.

How windy? (On the summits)

Westerly 40 to 50mph, peak speeds likely to vary during the day, occasional lulls possible. Strong gusts through passes and in down-wind areas

Effect of the wind on you?

Arduous conditions over the fells much of the day. Stability and balance affected on exposed ridges. Beware powerful gusts. Marked wind chill.

How Wet?

Drizzly rain

Overnight heavy rain before dawn, but fading and clearing northwards, leaving light drizzly rain in the wind at times. Overall amounts small during day. Very wet underfoot, streams in spate, some flooding of paths possible in west.

Cloud on the hills?

Breaks forming, most persistent west

Blanket cloud from lower slopes up on west and southern fells in morning. Breaks likely near Helvellyn and other eastern summits. Cloud base rising and thinning through the day, banks may come and go western tops.

Chance of cloud free summits?

60%

Sunshine and air clarity?

Patchy sunshine through high cloud. A general haze, but visibility good toward the east.

How Cold? (at 750m)

12C, only little variation with height; valleys gradually become warmer by afternoon. Feeling between 0 and 5C in the wind.

Freezing Level

Above the summits

[M0NOM]

Nigel M5TUE and myself are going to activate Lambrigg Fell from around midday onwards - we’ll be setup for QRO HF to 2m, Nigel will be on the key.

Mark.

[G4VFL]

Good Morning

Met report

Looking out the window at 0700z the cloud base is about 200m on Dent G/LD-045.

73 de

Andrew G4VFL

[M0JKS]

If anyone fancies a QSO or S2S on 6m or 23cm.(FM) I’ll be activating on 51.510MHz and 1297.5MHz from Winter Hill (G/SP-010) today. Will post on SOTAWATCH

73 Dave

[G8CPZ]

I’m postponing a few hours (QRV ~1200utc) to avoid morning rain and go to a bit higher summit, Gummers How G/LD-050

[DD5LP]

EVERYONE - Please be careful - there are do not travel warnings out for locations north of the Lake District.

Severe weather may affect services across the north of England and Scotland today, and Sunday 8 October

https://www.thetrainline.com/en/help/disruption-info/A5E926EAFD8E4E66A5C32126809DE489?toc=VT&origin=rs

[MM0FMF]

It’s a bit damp Ed! Here near Edinburgh we’ve had 36mm of rain in the last 36 hours. Over by Beinn Ime they’ve had 100mm and at the head of Loch Tay it’s 86mm. So it’s wet and there’ll be lots of standing water on roads and the streams and rivers will now be into spate. There’ll be flooding in places where the drainage is at capacity. I can’t remember when it’s been raining heavily for so long, 18+ months probably.

The railways in Scotland have stopped a number of trains since the findings into the recent fatal Stonehaven derailment in bad weather cost the train company £6million in penalties, so they take the safe option, cancel the service. The work on the Stonehaven line was planned and designed to cope with rain like this but the designers were not contracted to do the work, instead a well known useless mob, Carillion, a construction and services management company did it. They changed the design to save money having won the contract and they never informed the railways the design no longer had the flooding handling it was meant to have. Carillion were famed for favouring cost over quality. Result: trains on the line were not advised to run under caution due to the weather resulting in a train entering a flood at high speed derailing and 3 people were killed because Carillion did a bait and switch job. Most of what Carillion touched turned to complete crap which is why they went bust with all the little people who they sub-contracted to being owed money and the taxpayer picking up the tab.

So the advisories against travel are not because it really is dangerous but because it’s simpler to cancel services than do the engineering correctly. Grr

[DD5LP]

@MM0FMF

Carillion were famed for favouring cost over quality.

And it sounds like they favoured cost over safety as well!

After that disaster, I can understand the train companies being very cautious - of course, it doesn’t help those (like me) who chose to use the rail system to get around while in the UK next week, but the inconvenience is still better than being in a train that de-rails!

73 Ed.

[M0NOM]

Nigel M5TUE and myself decided to reduce our plans to an activation of Lambrigg Fell which is very close to his QTH. He brought shelter, and put it up expertly, and also guyed the SotaBeams Tactical 7m mast expertly without anything other than cord and pegs. I must practice my knots!

I brought the YAESU FT-857, Chameleon MPAS 2.0 and 21 AH LifePo4, with Nigel supplying his twin paddle cootie key for CW activity.

Most bands were working although 40m and 60m are compromised on the Chameleon. 2m FM was also working well, with a definite lift heard, so great to get @EI8HIB Frank with a solid 59 S2S on EI/IE-010.

Nigel did a sterling job with CW - he almost completed a Brazilian contact on 10m, but the other op couldn’t quite get his callsign correct then the QSB killed the link.

I think we made the best of the weather, we were in the cloud but it was only very light precipitation. The original planned walk to High Street from Haweswater would have been a very sorry, damp affair with no views.

Nigel’s CW Contacts:

TIME	CALLSIGN	BAND	MODE	RST	RSR	OPERATOR	SIG	REF
11:21	EA3CX	15m	CW	599	559	Ariel
11:22	SV2RUJ/P	15m	CW	599	559	Stavros	SOTA	SV/TL-087
11:25	MW0KXN	15m	CW	579	439	Kevin
11:28	SP9NLI	15m	CW	599	589	Andrzej
11:29	OK2PRQ	15m	CW	519	599	Bohumil
12:06	YO4RDW	10m	CW	599	599	Romeo
12:15	M1EYP/P	10m	CW	599	599	Tom	SOTA	G/SP-015
12:31	HB9AFI/P	30m	CW	559	549	KURT	SOTA	HB/FR-032
12:31	SM4BNZ	30m	CW	599	599	Rolf
12:31	ON5QRP	30m	CW	599	599	Francis
13:01	OH3GZ	12m	CW	599	599	JUKKA
13:08	W4JKC	12m	CW	529	579	THOMAS
13:11	TF3DC	12m	CW	449	449	Oskar

Mark’s SSB/FM Contacts

TIME	CALLSIGN	BAND	MODE	RST	RSR	OPERATOR	SIG	REF
10:50	GW4ZPL	2m	FM	45	59	Colin
10:51	M7MCG	2m	FM	59	59	Micah
10:52	2E0MIX	2m	FM	58	59	Derek
10:55	2E0IKN/P	2m	FM	51	59	Clive
10:56	G6AEK	2m	FM	59	59	David
10:57	M0CQE	2m	FM	58	58	Paul
10:57	2E0XGO/P	2m	FM	59	59	Richard
10:59	M0SSD	2m	FM	59	59	George
10:36	SV2RUJ/P	12m	SSB	59	59	Stavros	SOTA	SV/TL-087
10:39	DL7BC/P	20m	SSB	59	59	Hartwig	SOTA	FL/VO-017
10:39	UW8SM/P	20m	SSB	59	59	Andrij	SOTA	UT/CA-291
10:39	SP9AMH	20m	SSB	59	59	Mariusz
10:40	EA7GTJ	20m	SSB	55	59	Jose
10:41	OH3GZ	20m	SSB	59	59	JUKKA
10:41	HB9CGA	20m	SSB	59	59	ULRICH
10:42	EA1DHB	20m	SSB	59	59	Ricardo
10:42	EA1HVF	20m	SSB	59	59	Julio
10:42	F4JKY	20m	SSB	59	57	Ghislain
10:42	OE6TTF	20m	SSB	59	56	Eric
10:43	EA2DT	20m	SSB	58	55	Manuel
10:43	G4OOE/P	20m	SSB	55	44	A.R.N.	SOTA	G/TW-004
10:44	G3TQQ/P	20m	SSB	55	44	J	SOTA	G/TW-004
10:45	OM1ALT/P	20m	SSB	55	55	Michal	SOTA	OE/NO-180
10:46	IU3GKJ/P	20m	SSB	45	56	Riccardo	SOTA	I/VE-191
10:47	DF7IS	20m	SSB	55	58	Klaus
10:47	LB4LI	20m	SSB	57	55	Joakim
10:48	SP6BOW	20m	SSB	59	59	AUGUSTYN
10:48	DC5GM	20m	SSB	59	59	Martin
12:09	G8CPZ/P	2m	FM	59	59	A	SOTA	G/LD-050
12:42	LB4FH	40m	SSB	59	55	Kjetil
12:43	G0FEX	40m	SSB	59	59	KEN
12:45	G0HRT	40m	SSB	59	55	Robert
12:46	GI4TAJ	40m	SSB	59	44	Joe
12:49	EI8HIB/P	2m	FM	59	59	Frank	SOTA	EI/IE-010

Nigel’s Contacts

Mark’s Contacts

Longest S2S

2023/10 SOTA LD Weekend

[GM4TOE]

@MM0FMF

It’s a bit damp Ed!

Just driven from near Chester with an overnight in Glenrothes; to describe the weather as biblical beyond Carlisle is definitely an understimate. Detours, floods, roads being closed (after we had waded through) etc.

I feel really sorry for anybody in The Lakes this weekend, the view from the M6 was less than pleasant!

[DD5LP]

Barry,
I reckon anyone who went out to the Lake District this weekend and activated, deserves a duck icon adding to their database page to go with the webbed feet that they will certainly have grown!

Well done to all who ventured out despite the horrible weather. Now the bad weather can STOP as I’ll be in the LD region as from tomorrow!

Ed DD5LP / G8GLM

[M0NOM]

Much nicer today Ed.

[DD5LP]

Thank Goodness!

[G0EVV]

I can attest to the WX on Sat. I think that is the first time I have abandoned. I had planned a day walk to and from the Old Man G/LD-013 from Wrynose pass. Half way, at Skirl How, I turned back. All the rocks were super slippery and my glasses were permanently fogged up. Wind speed about 30mph. Not funny.
Today I bagged the summit from the south along with hoards of people. I did not know my activations were that popular! WX much better after a misty start. 30m performed well, as did 20 until I became tired. Thanks Mark.

David
G0EVV

[2E0XGO]

Thank you for the summit to summit from Black Combe today (postponed from yesterday) David .
The logbook looked as though I’d worked 40m not 2m with the conditions today entries from the Isle of Wight to Glasgow, and Dublin to Leeds and the N Yorks Moors .
Richard.