From Wednesday, June 12 till Saturday DM1LE and DF3MC are planning to activate several summits in GW/NW and G/SP. We are looking forward to many qso’s.
Frequencies are as usual, times and summits are not sure up to now.
VY 73
Martin df3mc
In reply to DF3MC:
Martin and Stephan…looking forward to working you in UK.
Russ
M6RGF
Any local SOTA activators wishing to join Martin and Stephan with Jimmy M0HGY and myself for a meal in Macclesfield on the Saturday evening, please email me via my address on QRZ.com.
Tom M1EYP
In reply to DF3MC:
I worked stephan today on 20 metres although the band was not in to great a shape the contact was made hope stephan and martin have a nice time while over here in the uk enjoy best 73 .
Dave M3XIE
In reply to DF3MC:
Martin
if I had know you were going to activate GW/NW-044, I would have asked you to look out for the H/H antenna I left up there 2 weeks ago!!
Hope you enjoy your time over here and wish you many contacts and good weather.
Dave/G4ASA
In reply to M1EYP:
I hope to come along. However as it is my 25th Wedding Anniversary I can’t guarantee my attendance.
73 Richard G3CWI
Reminder - Weston Balti, Macclesfield - tonight for a meal with our visiting German SOTA activators. All welcome.
Tom M1EYP (email on QRZ.com)
I see Richard G3CWI found the solution to attending on his silver wedding anniversary - bring his wife along with him!
All in all a memorable day on the three local summits with Stephan DM1LE and Martin DF3MC. Capped with that finest of SOTA traditions, a meal at the Weston Balti with no less than five Mountain Goats at the table.
Reports to follow, but for now, many thanks to Stephan and Martin for their excellent company today, and wishing you a very safe journey back to Munich tomorrow.
Tom M1EYP
An excellent evening - thanks for organising it Tom. Great to meet Stefan and Martin both on The Cloud and at the Weston Balti. Several thousand activations and well over 1,000 summits between us.
73 Richard G3CWI
The morning of Saturday 15th June 2013 came along, and I had overslept. In doing so, I had missed incoming calls from Martin DF3MC on my mobile. I hurried called Martin back and was relieved to learn that they had overnighted in Bangor and had at least two more hours to drive before arriving in Cheshire. This proved to be even longer, as it turned out that Martin, and Stephan DM1LE had stopped off for an activation of Mynydd y Cwm GW/NW-076 on the way across.
When I next received a call, the pair had already driven through Macclesfield and were climbing the Cat & Fiddle road. I suggested that they didn’t wait for me at the parking place, but pressed on with their ascent, and I would meet them at the summit of Shining Tor G/SP-004.
About an hour later, I was making the final approach to a very windy summit. I could see two masts in the air, and a man that spotted me and started walking towards me. I offered my hand and introduced myself. He shook me firmly by the hand and made some comment about the British weather in a German accent. “Have you made many contacts?” I asked. “Yes, quite a few” he replied. “But I must continue to walk now” he said, and carried on downhill. And there at the summit with their radios were Martin M/DF3MC/P and Stephan M/DM1LE/P. Oops. The walker must have thought I was a right one!
Shortly, the introductions took place with the real Stephan and Martin. They were both busy activating, so after a few photos, I continued along the stone path to the next field to use a wall as shelter from the wind. I set up the 12m groundplane antenna with difficulty, as the very top of the pole was slightly damaged making it tricky to anchor the top of the radiating element there. Several attempts resulted in the whole thing collapsing after a time!
24MHz conditions were not great all day. I generally worked only local stations in the North West of England, but there were occasional glimpses of DX. The first thing I heard on Shining Tor was a very loud 9M2 (West Malaysia) station calling CQ on 24.892MHz CW. But my replies were not heard. Neither were any of my CQs on CW or SSB.
So sat by the wall I unclipped the VX7R from the rucksack and called CQ SOTA on 2m FM. This resulted in four easy contacts before I had another go on 12m CW. This time I got four replies - 3 in England (nice to have David M0YDH in the CW log again) and one from Israel - 4Z5NX.
Martin reported that Stephan was having difficulty getting any contacts at all on HF SSB, so I offered my VX7R for an easy 2m FM qualification. I did not realise at this stage that Stephan was a ‘purist’ who was strictly HF only, and would rather miss out on the points than use VHF!
Anyway, he did qualify in the end, and of course Martin had no difficulty whatsoever on CW. While Stephan was packing up, I made another call on 2m FM and worked five more local chasers. We wandered down the hill chatting. Martin and Stephan were using SatNav in their hire car, and I was interested to know which way it would take us to Gun G/SP-013, so I suggested they led and I would follow.
I would have probably gone back towards Macclesfield, down the fork to the Stanley Arms, then across through Macclesfield Forest and Wildboarclough to Wincle. The SatNav took us past the Cat & Fiddle, then sharp right onto A54, then left between Wildboarclough and Wincle to rejoin the route I would have used.
Soon we were pulling in at the rough area opposite the access point for Gun. It was busy today with plenty of cars and space at a premium. We pretty much got the last two spots.
Although there had been heavy rain during the morning and recent days, the path up to Gun was still dry, so the three of us could remain in our light walking trainers. I described the more normal wet and dirty underfoot conditions on this route to Stephan and Martin. At the summit, I turned right to find a sheltered spot behind a tree. This was near to a gentleman having his lunch in the middle of a walking day, and we had quite a chat. He asked me all the typical questions about who I expected to pick me up and such, and then reported how he had found the conversation had added some real interest to his day!
I kicked off on 12m CW again on Gun, and worked John M6BLV and Mark G0VOF. It didn’t look like there was any DX potential at all now. Steve G6LUZ was added on 12m PSK31 before I packed away. Up near the trig point, I added Steve 2W0JYN and Jimmy M0HGY to the log on 2m FM with the handheld. Martin DF3MC had secured another comfortable qualification on CW, but Stephan was struggling again on SSB. This was when I offered the VX7R to Stephan and found out that he would fail to qualify before considering operating on VHF! And indeed, he missed out on the point from G/SP-013 with just one QSO in the log, although that is sufficient for him to claim the new unique activation.
Martin tried to tail-end my QSO with Jimmy M0HGY to also add the G AM to his logbook. However, Jimmy wasn’t hearing Martin’s replies. Taking a look at Martin’s own VX7R revealed that he had CTCSS tones enabled and also a repeater shift. Having got to grips myself with this rig’s unintuitive menu system this year, I was able to turn these features off so that the VX7R was now working normally as a simplex radio on 2m. In the meantime, Martin used my VX7R to make the QSO with Jimmy.
We made the short walk to the car, and I suggested to Stephan and Martin that they just follow me to The Cloud G/SP-015, even if their SatNav did not agree with my route. Fortunately the parking area was clear, so we could get straight on with the short ascent. I ensured that Martin and Stefan were aware that they were about to ascend the most activated SOTA summit in the world, and they soon saw why. They reported enjoying the stairway climb through the woodland and were busy snapping photos when they reached the National Trust sign.
But once at the top, with good if a little hazy views in all directions, Martin was impressed and described it as a “beautiful summit”. Working conditions were the same again for all three of us. I made six QSOs on 12m, but again all G stations - three on SSB, one on CW and two on PSK31, the last one being Jimmy for his first ever data mode SOTA chase, and the first time we have worked each other on PSK. Martin’s HF CW activation was plain sailing as usual, but Stephan struggled to get to four contacts using 20m and 10m SSB. This time he did get the point though, and then spent time enjoying the views while listening around the bands.
Richard G3CWI cycled from Macclesfield to The Cloud and carried his road bike up to meet us on the summit. After descent I advised Martin and Stephan to follow me until I gave them a “thumbs up” out of the window. That was the signal for them to stop following me, and start following the SatNav. Perhaps the SatNav always agreed with my route anyway, I forgot to ask them!
A quick shower and change at home, and then Jimmy M0HGY, Liam and I walked up to the Weston Balti Raj, the postcode of which had been given to Stephan and Martin for their SatNav. They were staying in a small hotel in Tytherington, just north of Central Macclesfield, and they made good time back to the restaurant. We were joined by Richard G3CWI and Wee Wah, making it a table for seven, five of which were SOTA Mountain Goats! The food was, as usual, first class, and it was nice to be able to share in Richard and Wee Wah’s silver wedding - and Wee Wah’s 50th birthday celebrations. Congratulations!
Martin very kindly presented Richard and myself with a copy each of his fantastic book “Informationen fuer Bergfunker” - a detailed and illustrated guide for the Germany (Alpine) DL association. Many thanks for this Martin - it is a brilliant piece of work and will be invaluable when Jimmy and I visit your region in the future.
Tom M1EYP
After a comfortable flight from Manchester to Munich, we returned home well. It has been a fantastic tour and we reached all of our goals. Altogether, 10 summits could be activated (7 in GW, 3 in G), we could climb two of the higher mountains in Snowdonia - Yr Wyddfa and Moel Siabod and we reached the most activated SOTA-summit in the world. The only drawback was the weather, which was very windy, cold and wet on the higher summits. We had to keep the summit time short, especially on Moel Sinabod, where there is no shelter.
Thank you to all the faithful chasers who made our trip a success.
SOTA is a lot about radio stuff and mountaineering, but in my opinion the best part is to meet friends who share a common interest. And so the day together with Tom and Richard on the summits and later with their families in the Weston Balti Raj was the highlight of our days in Great Britain.
Thanks a lot - and I hope to meet you again very soon - on the bands, on a hill or in a nice restaurant !
Martin, DF3MC and Stephan, DM1LE
In reply to DF3MC:
which was very windy, cold and wet on the higher summits
What do you expect in the Summer in the UK, sun and blue skies? 
It’s just as well you didn’t come in the Winter when the weather is worse!
Glad you had a good time… you must come up to GM next time.
Andy
MM0FMF
Glad you had a good time… you must come up to GM next time.
Where it will be colder, wetter and windier ;-))
73
Rod
In reply to M0JLA:
It’s a better kind of cold 
Andy
MM0FMF
If any / all of you are looking for warmer summits to activate, don’t forget we have SOTA down here in VK now (at least some parts and we’re working on the rest).
I also intend activating a couple of peaks in DL next month when I am visiting Germany - I only operate SSB - what would the normal frequencies on say 40, 20 and 12 be for SOTA traffic please? I will self spot but it’s probably good to be close to the normally used frequencies. These (if I manage it) will be my first summit activations by the way, so lets hope I get the needed 4 contacts on each one !
73 Ed VK2JI.
P.S. mann versteht Deutsch (midestens teilweise).
In reply to VK2JI:
Hello Ed,
P.S. mann versteht Deutsch (midestens teilweise).
ich erlaube mir Dir in Deutsch zu antworten, dass ist einfacher fuer mich.
Die nicht offiziellen SOTA Anruffrequenzen fuer SSB sind 7118, 14285 und 29950 kHz. Auf diesen QRG’s wirst Du sicher schnell gefunden. Einige SOTA Aktivierer verwenden auch alternativ die 7165 und 14342 kHz. Wenn Du Deine SOTA Aktivierung auf sotawatch vorher ankuendigst, wirst Du normalerweise schnell von den chasern gefunden und gespottet. Wenn Deine cq SOTA Rufe nicht gehört werden hilft immer ein selfspot.
Ich wuensche Dir eine schoene Zeit in DL und viel Glueck bei Deinen geplanten Aktivierungen von den Bergen. Falls Du auch in die Regionen von DM/NW oder DM/RP kommen solltest, koennen wir gerne eine gemeinsame SOTA Aktivierung unternehmen. Ich wohne ca. 30 km oestlich von Koeln, die Berge von dem Sauerland in DM/NW oder auch in der Eifel in DM/RP sind von meinem QTH gut zu erreichen.
Ich wuensche Dir ganz tolle Tage in DL und eine gute Reise!
73 Lutz DL3SBA