4000! That’s a milestone - congratulations on reaching it! I love seeing your posts in the SOTA group on facebook and am glad to congratulate you here.
73
VA7SGY
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Congratulations Tom,
For every 1,000 activations your physical age gets set back 1 year, or so I hear. So you are now 4 years younger and thousands of chasers rejoice in the thought of many more contacts.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
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Yes, conditions seemed decent in the later part of the afternoon here. As ever, I was using 5 watts from the FT-817 and a very simple groundplane antenna I built myself from five bits of wire! With that set up, I’m happy enough simply making contacts at all, so “Good sig into CA” is very pleasing to read!
Full report coming later. Thanks everyone for the kind words.
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Congratulations on the 4K Tom🥳. Have you ever walked up The Cloud blindfolded? I reckon you could manage it.
My ¼ wave vertical for 10m only has four bits of wire. Reaches CA. 
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Not up. But down, many times - ie in thick fog after it’s gotten dark and I realise I’ve forgotten my headtorch! Yes, I can manage it 
Mine too! Sometimes I’m lazy (or making a sensible in-the-field decision in strong winds) and peg out the 3rd and 4th radials together so the GP is more of a 3-radial arrangement. No difference in performance noted. When I upgraded/rebuilt my GP antennas with the SOTAbeams green mil-spec wire (my all time-favourite wire*), I thought I might as well go from 3 radials to 4. No particular scientific or theoretical reason why, more of a “why not?” The only perceived benefit to this noted so far is that if one radial breaks off, I’ve still got a working antenna without an in-the-field repair!
*SOTAbeams green mil-spec wire - the benefits:
- It it strong - it does not snap, ever.
- Even a clumsy oaf like me can work with it. I can strip the ends of it, make chocolate box or soldered connections with it etc.
- Because of the increased diameter of the core, using it gives my antennas a greater bandwidth. My 10m GP covers the entire 10m band from CW up to FM! It can even be used on 12m without adjustment!
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Congratulations Tom, thats an amazing achievement 
I was also pleased to hear you as despite over 5k chaser points I had never managed to work The Cloud before! I can only assume it must be quite a rare hill… 
73
Jon G4IVV
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Well done Tom and great to have a S2S with you on such a memorable activation.
I presume you were using the 817 operating 5w SSB to CA….even more impressive.
Paul
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Yes indeed Paul. Always!
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That’s quite scary! As is the idea of an average of one activation every two days throughout the 22 year history of SOTA! I guess I quite like SOTA…
I actually put the brakes on while in GM last week. Liam and I were on schedule to complete 9 or 10 SOTA activations in our little holiday, but I wanted the 4000th activation to be on The Cloud G/SP-015. Not because it’s the most activated SOTA in the world (though I guess I’ve got something to do with that!), not because it’s my favourite and most local SOTA summit*, but because it would give me the time and opportunity to do a big long activation.
*Shining Tor G/SP-004 is actually slightly closer to my home QTH geographically, but The Cloud G/SP-015 is much faster to get to in terms of home-to-summit.
Friday 23rd February 2024 - The Cloud G/SP-015 - M1EYP SOTA activation #4000
I wanted the SOTA Database to be up-to-date to my 3999th activation before heading out. This meant a later-than-intended bedtime on the Thursday night, and subsequently a later-than-intended get-up on Friday morning. This probably significantly reduced my probability of working the Far East and Oceania, which was a shame. The priority was always going to be the afternoon 10m path to North America though.
I arrived on The Cloud and set up the MW0SAW Excalibur antenna. My priority/obsession is 10m currently, both for the Challenge, and the conditions, but I was keen to make this special activation multiband, and work as many active SOTA chasers as possible. On a separate mast, I then set up the SOTAbeams MFD. The plan was to work up through the bands from 40m to 10m, trying CW, SSB and Data, but dipping in and out of 2m FM throughout the day.
And this is exactly what I did. The weather was cold but mainly dry. It was breezy, but with no-one on the summit when I arrived, I baggsed the sheltered side of the topograph to hunker down behind. There was a 45 minute break in operating when an unforecast but heavy hail and rain shower passed through at lunchtime. I used this time to take down and pack away the Excalibur and replace with my homemade groundplane for 10m, which I wanted for the main afternoon transatlantic propagation. Also I took the timely opportunity to refuel and warm up with my flask of mulligatawny soup.
It was a very successful activation with lots of chasers, a number of S2S, plenty of DXCCs worked, some nice DX and chats with friends old and new. Particularly pleasing were the two S2S QSOs into W6 (California), and a huge surprise when I was running on 10m CW - and getting a call from 5R8AL - Madagascar IOTA AF-013!
Here’s the summary:
199 QSOs
32 DXCCs
Madagascar 5R: 1
Portugal CT: 1
Germany DL: 12
Spain EA: 14
Canary Islands EA8: 2
Belarus EU: 2
France F: 3
England G: 55
Wales GW: 8
Hungary HA: 2
Switzerland HB: 4
Italy I: 7
Puerto Rico KP4: 1
Norway LA: 2
Bulgaria LZ: 2
Austria OE: 4
Finland OH: 2
Czech Republic OK: 2
Slovakia OM: 1
Belgium ON: 3
Denmark OZ: 1
Netherlands PA: 7
Brazil PY: 1
Russia RA: 8
Slovenia S5: 1
Sweden SM: 1
Poland SP: 7
Greece SV: 7
Ukraine UR: 7
Canada VE: 5
USA W: 29
Romania YO: 2
12 S2S
MW0IDX/P on Cyrn y Brain GW/NW-043
M1CJE on Titterstone Clee Hill G/WB-004
HB9AFI/P on Mont Pèlerin HB/VD-043
M7MWZ on Shining Tor G/SP-004
M1CJE on Brown Clee Hill G/WB-002
MW0IDX/P on Moel y Gamelin GW/NW-042
G4TGJ/P on Fair Snape Fell G/SP-007
M1CJE on Long Mynd-Pole Bank G/WB-005
M1CJE on Stiperstones G/WB-003
W6PNG on Temple Hill W6/SC-369
G4OOE/P on Normanby Top G/TW-004
N6AN on Flint Peak W6/CT-225
A mention in dispatches to Paul @M0CQE who managed to work me ten times during the activation on different band-mode combinations!
Thanks to everyone for the nice comments above; you’ve inspired me to get cracking on the next 1000 activations…!
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An epic 4,000th activation Tom. Congratulations! 
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Congratulations Tom, a fantastic achievement.
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Congratulations Tom good work!
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Chapeau Tom!!
Keep it up!
your tales are always interesting…
73
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