A fab day for @GM5ALX Alex and me up on Mount Keen. Alex on HF and me on 2m. We had great results, but not what you’d expect.
Alex will be along with a report at some point.
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Wow, snow! My summit was pretty dry underfoot and it felt like the beginning of summer.
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That was my thought… white stuff! None for me.
East Cairn Hill GM/SS-282 is the hill to the left of the trig with the 45deg slope. To the right of the trig is looking towards Ben Lomond/Loch Lomond direction.
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Same. Absolutely glorious weather today. Went for a stroll this evening by the sea as well. People out swimming, by the bars and restaurants. The Dublin Riviera!
Took the bins out with one of my tribe (who I think I’ve gotten in to birding). We sat on a bench by the sea watching Seagulls dive bomb for fish through our bins. A great time was had.
Tried calling again on 2m by the sea but nothing.
What a great day. Will be QRV SOTA tomorrow morning so hopefully more of the same!
My setup today (KH1 was in my backpack. It stayed there):
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Was here too. A lovely cycle and climb in T-shirts and trail shoes. Not a breath of wind at the top. There just happened to be a lot of snow this winter, so there is still plenty of it around.
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There’s a bit of a lift on again this morning. Just caught @M9OUD on G/LD-007 on VHF FM just over 315 km from here. I have my 5 element yagi appropriately twisted and pointing his way, which will have helped, but not a bad start to the day… 
Edit at 12:30(-ish) local time – it was nice whilst it lasted but it faded fairly quickly. I’ve been monitoring 145.525 for the last quarter hour or so, having tuned there chasing a SOTAWatch spot to find it being used for a GB2RS news broadcast from Sutton Coldfield, about 114 kms from here, and it’s fading out from time to time. Some random but rather strong non-amateur QRM at one point, too, to add to the intelligibility…
On a historical note, many of us of a ‘certain age’ will recall in the early 1970s when we still had 405-line Band I and Band III VHF black-and-white TV broadcasts that during warm weather and high-pressure conditions, particularly in southern England, tv announcers would tell us that the distorted images, fading pictures, or a “double picture” effect on our tv pictures were due to interference from French TV transmissions. Of course, they didn’t explain the cause [the French didn’t jam our tv at other times!] but for many of us radio amateur it was our first experience of tropospheric ducting.
On a technical note, because both the UK 405-line and French 819-line systems used positive video modulation, the French signals could lock onto British tv sets, appearing as a superimposed picture or two images side-by-side.
This is our summer, this week and next. Enjoy it while you can.
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Band I would be mainly Es as tropo on 45-60MHz is not common. Band III would be tropo. We got “foreign interference” on 405 TV in NW England too.
My grandparents had an early incarnation of cable TV in their flat overlooking the Channel in the mid-70s because TV antennas were not permitted on sea-front buildings. It was fed from a receiver somewhere a bit inland, but the announcements about possible interference from TV stations across the Channel, and the effects of said interference were not unusual features. By that time the broadcasts were, of course, 625-line and some of them were even in colour (which often took a somewhat psychedelic turn when interference struck).
Another day of whopper lift and a new 2m PB for me.
443km on 2 meters from Wicklow to London. 326km down to Cornwall as well. Also got across the Irish Sea to Wales on 70cm for two more QSO’s. 270 was ‘Great Again’ this weekend. Wish I’d finished my BTHG now.
Brilliant day had today. I’ll write some drivel up later. 
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Thanks for the contact , William DE 2I0WMN 73
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Thanks William. Great to get you on Friday in the morning and at the POTA. I hope your Marconi Day station went well. When you came in on .500 Friday morning by the beach I got the whiff the bands might be getting a cheeky tickle thanks to the Sun!
Great to be chased from so far away. I did Oxfordshire, Leicestershire and EIand Welsh summits too, but this was the longest today. The lift did seem to be just early, fading later. It was quite cool and breezy with a tiny bit of rain in the lakes but hazy sunshine with high cloud later (and warming up with very strong UV).
We should do it again sometime! 
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That was a great Summit 2 Summit, thank you for the QSO! You were a super solid 59. Could’ve been sat on the summit here in EI it was that clear.
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There was something on late on Friday afternoon, but I didn’t manage anything too spectacular. I was on strike, so out at the picket line in the morning, and jumped up to Hill of Stake in the afternoon. Managed a 167km contact to an operator on GI/SM-013, Donald’s Hill, but the operator made absolutely no mention of SOTA, so I’m not really able to call it a proper S2S - he said he was on Donald’s Hill, but I didn’t know if that’d be within the regulation 25m AZ, whether he got there by helicopter, was running off a generator etc.
Still, when I flung the distance measuring line into google maps, I spotted the crow’s flight line was running almost directly through the Arran hills. Maybe there was a perfect wee window that I was just sneaking through, but the far greater heights of Suidhe Fearghas and Caisteal Abhail would surely have been blocking anything between Hill of Stake’s 522m and Donald’s Hill at 399m.
With all the talk of lift and so on, I also decided it’d be my chance to finally make an activation on 70cm. In fact, I’d never made a single simplex 70cm contact at all before Friday, so that was a nice wee mini achievement to tick off. Distances covered were fairly modest with two contacts at around 40km each with an FT-65 and RH-770, but I was reasonably happy with that.
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'Tis the law to call CQ on 70cm when out portable. Failure to do so can result in an on the spot fine of £1.37p or 96 months in prison.
M270GA! 
Fabrique Belgique! Le Potage Sportif sur Le Plage, as they say in Stockton-on-Tees! 
EDIT: Forgot to mention, on the way up to EI/IE-IE-022 today, I called in to the Sunday IRTS News. It was mentioned that we could see some juicy 270 lift again, peaking around Tuesday and Wednesday. I’ll try some lunchtime MicroPOTA then!
Also there was news of a world first 76GHz EME QSO made on April 22nd. More here:
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Nothing wrong with getting there by helicopter, so long as you operate away from the vehicle - pilots don’t like untangling the EFHW from the rotors.
(But agree with your decision not to log a S2S unless the operator confirms they were compliant.)
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I’d be tempted to send an email thanking the op for the QSO and describing your station, location on the hill and that you were operating SOTA. Then maybe prompt a response in kind enquiring about their station set up. I’ve had such enquiries by email from various people over the years, one when I had a 2m FM contact on my handheld while walking off the hill. On that occasion I was still in the AZ so they got their chase okay. It’s not always easy to get absolute validation on air at the time the contact is made.
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You’re not London tube driver. You’re not a Birmingham bin man. Junior doctor or something else?
Thing is, I usually go rigged for primarily 2m with the FT-270, and a 2m Slim G. It’s only if I’ve got the magic FT-65/RH-770 combo that I’ll shout on 70… and until now, all of those have been shouts into the void!
Aye, right enough, can imagine that’d get messy, will maybe need to hold off scouring the pages of Heli Trader for a wee bargain Sotacopter and maybe wait for second hand jetpacks to come down in price.
That’s a very sensible suggestion actually, I’ll maybe drop them an email and see what the story was. The guy seemed to be very busy on the air for a while, so he might just get hooked on this silly idea of speaking to loads of really nice folk from hilltops!
Wrong callsign for those two cities, not smart enough for the junior doctor thing. I’m a technician at a university and the whole funding system is fairly well in collapse right across the country at the moment.
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