Just a quick heads up: I will hopefully be activating both the following SOTA summit Islands next to St Kilda, either on Friday 21st August, Saturday 22nd August or Sunday 23rd August, all depends on sea and wx conditions nearer the time:
I will be able to confirm dates a couple of days before, where I will inform you on this thread… when I reach St Kilda, the only method of communication will be by using Inreach through my Garmin i66. I will spot myself on the SOTA watch software using my Garmin, and make sure I do it 30 minutes before I reach each summit, hoping people will be ready. I will only call out and operate on 2m S20 (145.500 FM) at first, so if you are around on the day of my activations and in with a chance of reaching St Kilda, please have a listen out for me. I will need all the support I can get to qualify.
If I have time when on summit, I plan to do 7-MHz SSB & CW and possibly 14-MHz SSB. Tim @G5OLD will also be on the trip, so please listen out and work both of us.
It will be great to work some stations from this SOTA community, and possibly give out a unique. Both summits have only ever been activated once in the past.
This is the fourth year I’ve been down to do this trip, so fingers crossed everything aligns we will keep everyone updated. Be great to work as many stations as we can.
I’ll keep in touch with you both, I’m going to be on Rum from Friday evening until Monday afternoon so will adjust plans as fit to hopefully get a S2S. 2m looks doable??
Congratulations Ben and Tim and activating these 2 challenging SOTA summits in the St Kilda Isles. I can see from your activation logs that it is possible to qualify on 2m FM in the St Kilda Isles and therefore if you both get the opportunity to activate Scotlands 2 remaining unactivated SOTA summits which are the 2 sea stacks, you’ll probably have no issue qualifying these sea stacks on 2m FM.
I’ll do a full write up and trip report. It was great fun on 2 m.
But I took a 4 element beam and 50W, probably completely impractical for the stacks and on the limit on what is practical for Boreray and Soay. The latter were very exposed. Stack an Armin is hidden from most of the Outer Hebrides by Boreray.
Making friends with the Outer Hebridean Hams has been worthwhile. I can only thank them profusely for patiently listening out for me without the prospect of knowing when I would arrive nevermind, if we did!
A massive thanks to @GW0PLP who also listened out for me on 2 m with a successful 2m QSO at 680 km on Soay. A fine fine effort
we will keep everyone updated. Be great to work as many stations as we can.
