Mention of SOTA on BBC Radio 5 Live this morning!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000d023
Listen from about 14:20
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I just listened to this now. Great mention of my dad Tom M1EYP up early this morning and on the way to activate Kinder Scout G/SP-001 for SOTA. Looks like the presenters at BBC Radio 5 Live seemed interested in what SOTA is all about.
Jimmy M0HGY
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“Impressive” was the BBC presenters’ assessment.
And I suppose building radio stations on mountain summits out of the contents of a rucksack should be considered exactly that 
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Looks like I’ll be on BBC Radio 5 (909kHz & 693kHz MW & + DAB + online) during the “Your Call” programme this morning, sometime between 9 and 10am. BBC are interested in my “Lockdown walks” project and website. I’ll try to sneak in a mention of SOTA if I can!
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Epic fail.
The conversation went nowhere near an opportunity to mention SOTA, nor even to mention the Lockdown walks section of my website.
You win some, you lose some…
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If I understand correctly does this mean that you were on air from somewhere other than “The Cloud”?
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Check out the activator uniques table and disabuse yourself of the myth
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Another little mention of SOTA on national radio this morning…
(Listen from 56 mins 30 secs)
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I was driving home from my 10m SOTA activation of The Cloud G/SP-015 this afternoon when I heard BBC Radio 5 Live encouraging listeners to contact them about their “unusual hobbies”! Well I couldn’t resist such an opportunity for a bit of SOTA exposure to a large audience… 
Listen from 1:52:00
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Very nice. They couldn’t get past 10-4. I noticed your accent is slightly different from my grandpapa, who was a Londoner. My best friend, who is from the Northern LD, says there are eight accents in England. True?
Elliott, K6EL
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More like 80.
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My accent (Macclesfield) isn’t even like Manchester (20 miles north) or Stoke (20 miles south) let alone Cumbria or London!
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- intelligible
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Some of my an ancestors came from Sommerset in 1840. I flnd Tom easy to understand, the accent is mild imo. I have been mistaken for an Englishman so maybe there is something genetic? I don’t think I sound anything but Australian. Odd
73
Ron
VK3AFW
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Great job!
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Nice job Tom! SOTA’s new “good buddy” 
Learnt a new fact about you too. Perhaps one to file away just in case there’s ever a quiz on fun facts about well-known SOTA operators… 
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Even if you group accents by their general characteristics there are more than eight and perhaps more than the 80 that Richard suggests. Old timers in the Black Country claim that you could even tell which street a local came from by his accent! When I was a kid you could certainly tell which part of Birmingham someone came from. My impression is that regional accents have become less noticeable since the advent of TV, but OTOH you now get new accents from immigrant populations.
With regard to Ron’s Australian accent, in recent years with you tube and social media I have found that there seem to be various regional accents in Australia too, which I suppose should not be surprising!
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Brian,
It was once easy to pick people who had been raised in Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane or Sydney just by listening to them speak for a few minutes.
Remember Australia covers an area similar to Europe and with a large range of climate. There is plenty of opportunity for regional accents to develop due to the tyranny of distance, aka the isolation of many towns.
Increased mobility has smoothed the differences I believe.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
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Is it true?.. turn back the calendar and you get a penal colony with only cockney accents plus 250 aboriginal languages. Odd thing, even today English is not the official language there.
Elliott, K6EL
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It wasn’t just Londoners who broke the law back then.
It’s not an official language in the UK or USA either!
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