“The sky is crying, look at the tears run down the street” sang Elmore James in 1959. Well today it should have been “The sky is broken, look at the protons fall out of the sky.” Currently KP=8 and G4 Severe Magnetic storm.
I’ll write about the activation later but conditions were variable, signals then no signals. Lather, rinse, repeat. I managed 1 QSO on 10m. EK6OLS in Yerevan was 51 to 59+40 on the meter. Sadly all of EU was calling him. There was an A92 for about 30secs but he QSB’d away. Never mind got the multiplier.
However, all clouds have a silver lining. The WX was fairly brilliant, 75% blue sky. And when I got to the top of Beinn Tharsuinn, the last lump to climb over to Beinn Choarach GM/SS-062 I saw this.
Bonus points if you know the summits. But everything big North of me had a fresh coat of snow. Made up for the broken sky.
And we can’t let a chance to play “The Sky Is Crying” go by. Here is Henrik Frieshlader giving it the beans on a 59 Les Paul and amp using 6L6 valves, wow what a tone. The classic B3+Leslie isn’t too shabby either. Henrik is rapidly becoming my favourite “new” guitar man.
You threw me for a while, Andy - the only Beinn Tharsuinn that I am familiar with is the one that is part of the Lurg Mhor circuit, and those summits just don’t fit! Just part of the fun with endlessly recycled Gaelic summit names…
Conditions were very variable Tim. I got 12 QSOs on 40m, 7 QSOs on 30m, 16 QSOs on 20m, 6QSOs on 17m & 1 QSO on 10m. Nothing on m15 or 12m. My 10m was to The Canaries, EC8ADS. EK6OLS was loud but everyone in EU was calling him, I stood no chance. Lots of calling for no replies then a small pileup. Happened many times like that.
One of my contest chums said there was a big aurora on 4m this afternoon and it’s building again now. Probably a visible aurora if I can get clear of the street lights.
Good luck with the Aurora, I heard it’s been anticipated . Really interesting to see your success today, rather surprising! The activations I could hear, were not the usual pile ups.
I found a photo looking back from Ben Narnain. I think your summit is on the left of the infamous loch long which I now know more about….
Not so nice up north, less sun and a cold wind. Conditions = Junk, only one qso on 10m with Jan OK2PDT
Listened for you on 30m CW, but too weak for a S2S.
And I where you were yesterday may soon have the same treatment, if it hasn’t had it already. Just when I thought the white stuff season might be fading, the weather ramps back up ready for my next visit north of the border in a few weeks.
Apologies for asking for the summit reference on 40m CW. For some reason I’d only got 20 spots up and the only reference visible was GM/SS-XXX. I would have seen 062 spotted for your earlier SSB session had the number of spots been entered as the usual 50. That’s the problem with weekend activating, the spots come thick and fast and monitoring 20 spots is just not enough.
I did wonder whether SS-066 might be honoured with your presence later in the day, but it soon became apparent you were taking up residence on SS-062 for the duration.
Insufficient legs Gerald. I enjoyed the walk up and down this one. Adding another 350m descent and re-ascent wouldn’t be enjoyable especially as the re-ascent is rather steep. At present I’d rather do a single summit and enjoy it than push myself to do two. That’s not to say I didn’t try to do better than last week when I was about 25mins behind the predicted times. I was about 5 mins ahead for this one
