What summits are people chasing?

In reply to GW7AAV:

Surely Helen has some relatives down there that she needs to see?

73

Richard
G3CWI

In reply to GW7AAV:

At least you were a good signal with me! I was beginning to think I had an RX fault when I set up. 40m was dead, there were signals but all were weedy, wishy-washy nonsense. Only on checking the WX services did I begin to think it was the sky and not the set. RAF Volmet was loud on 5MHz, Shannon Volmet was very loud on 5MHz and respectable on 8.9MHz. There were few takers on 5MHz, just 4 on SSB and 1 on CW. Nothing on 40m, I called and called and called. 10MHz was the only place working, G,DL,PA,OE,HA,SM & OZ worked.

I picked up a bottle of the amber nectar at the big white building in Dalwhinnie. :wink:

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to G3NYY:

After a near-disastrous RAOTA CW net this morning, with propagation
almost non-existent on 80m, I abandoned plans to do any SOTA
activations today. To judge from other people’s reports today, it
looks like that was a wise decision.
Hope for better condx tomorrow!

Well, after neraly giving myself a hernia, trying to bungee the X-300 attached to a 10ft pole to the finger post, I would say it was a tad windy today, Walt.

Strangely enough, it was harder to take down and it took both GR1STQ and myself to remove it from the finger post.

Should have taken the portable dipole, I suppose, but where’s the challenge in that ;-)}}

73
Mike MR6MMM

In reply to 2E0YYY:

I wish the person that broke the ionosphere today would get a move on and repair it! I managed to qualify CE-002 on 60 metres by the skin of my teeth and the skill of the chasers (thanks, guys!) then found 80 metres totally dead, I got one contact on 20 metres, moved to 40 and got another one, so stopped for lunch. Afterwards I slunk onto 2 metres FM with my tail between my legs and got 15 contacts! At least I got six S2Ss on 4 summits today, which was great!

To answer the opening question, I’ll chase any summit on offer, but the highest scoring summits and the remotest summits give me the vicarious pleasure of a city-bound mountain lover!

73

Brian G8ADD

In reply to G8ADD:

broke the ionosphere today…

It wasn’t broken in the Lake District. I got 93 QSOs on 40m and 20m from Swinside G/LD-057. Even Jimmy and Rick (M0RCP) made plenty each on 2m FM from this “VHF-challenged” summit.

I wouldn’t have thought that 80m or 60m would be that good now as we move into the summer months. 40m, to be fair, hasn’t been in great shape all weekend. 20m seems OK though.

Mind you, I would probably have had a similar struggle to yourself on SSB. I quickly got frustrated with HF SSB about five years ago. Learning CW tried less of my patience than trying to make HF QRP SSB work!!!

Tom M1EYP

In reply to M1EYP:

In reply to G8ADD:

broke the ionosphere today…

It wasn’t broken in the Lake District. I got 93 QSOs on 40m and 20m
from Swinside G/LD-057. Even Jimmy and Rick (M0RCP) made plenty each
on 2m FM from this “VHF-challenged” summit.

Well done on 93 QSO,s on HF Tom, excellent result with the dreadful conditions, puts my 2 contacts to shame on Friday.

BTW, I heard someone working Jimmy on 145.475 IIRC, however, I couldn’t hear Jimmy. Very dissapointed to miss Swinside.

73
Mike MR6MMM

I’ve been listening to a DXpedition on Arran (about 370 miles away) today at intervals, and 80 metres seems to have been working better than 40 most of the time. During daylight today I didn’t hear anything much closer than 300 miles away on 40.

In reply to M1EYP:

Well done, Tom, and the others, too: that lovely little hillock looks seriously screened on VHF except perhaps to the east.

Its a bad time for 80 with the D-layer absorption high, but there has been more activity recently than I heard today. 60m suffers less from the summer-time blues and is often better than 40 at this time of year, I have had eleven SOTA contacts on it in the last week with good signals from all over the UK and would rate it as the ideal SOTA band if it were more widely available. 20 was strange, with signals coming and going rapidly. I upped the power to 100 watts and the antenna is well-proven, but not a bite, my one contact was by hunt and pounce! I should have expected it, I suppose, Kp has been up to 5 in the last 24 hours and the aurora has been south of its usual haunts, and the ionosphere is usually jumpy after a storm!

73

Brian G8ADD

In reply to G8ADD:

In reply to 2E0YYY:

I wish the person that broke the ionosphere today would get a move on
and repair it! I managed to qualify CE-002 on 60 metres by the skin of
my teeth and the skill of the chasers (thanks, guys!) then found 80
metres totally dead, I got one contact on 20 metres, moved to 40 and
got another one, so stopped for lunch. Afterwards I slunk onto 2
metres FM with my tail between my legs and got 15 contacts! At least I
got six S2Ss on 4 summits today, which was great!

Thanks for the S2S today, Brian. At least you managed to get onto HF.

John GR1STQ couldn’t even get the HF antenna up. Anyway, me being the big softee I am, I handed him the mike to my 2m rig so he could activate the summit. It would appear the cheeky so and so worked one more S2S than me, thus confiming the saying, "no good deed goes unpunished :-))))

73
Mike MR6MMM

In reply to 2E0YYY:
Either that, or just another example of a “beautiful call sign” in action. :slight_smile:

In reply to MM0FMF:
“I picked up a bottle of the amber nectar at the big white building in Dalwhinnie.”

Rich B****r - only the shop next door to me is more expensive for Whisky!

Barry GM4TOE

In reply to GM4TOE:

Well a bottle of Dalwhinnie was significantly more than at my local ASDA. But Knockando was very reasonably priced. I haven’t seen that in a supermarket for 13/14 years so I couldn’t resist.

But in general the prices were outrageous compared to the shops. I only popped in hoping they had a tea room as the Dalwhinnie Hotel is no more and I didn’t want to be served by the grumpiest man in Scotland at the cafe at the petrol station.

I also discovered a road of unsurpassed beauty. I was scouting our parking spaces for odd ball hills and so dropped off the A9 and took the tiny road down to Trinafour, the one that climbs over the bleak moorland then drops like a stone with lots of hairpin bends till it’s under the Erochty Dam and passes Trinafour power station. Wow! Then out of Trinafour and then the minor road to Tummel Bridge. The view to Schiehallion with the blue sky and all the gorse in bloom was breathtaking.

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to MM0FMF:

In reply to GM4TOE:

Well a bottle of Dalwhinnie was significantly more than at my local
ASDA. But Knockando was very reasonably priced. I haven’t seen that in
a supermarket for 13/14 years so I couldn’t resist.

Phew! Thank goodness for that! I thought you had entered your dotage and was drinking Aussie “beer”!

73

Brian G8ADD

In reply to G8ADD:

For the avoidance of doubt this is the big white building in Dalwhinnie…

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to MM0FMF:

Ah, a shrine!

As I haven’t been to Dalwhinnie for nearly 20 years there was always the doubt that it could be a new supermarket and you had sunk to XXXX! You may well say “Oh ye of little faith!”

73

Brian G8ADD