Paul, I didn’t realise how bad ours was until I started to upload YouTube videos. It takes three hours to do a 30 minute film! If I’m I’m a hurry for something I tether my phone and use 4G.
Openreach went for the low hanging fruit - we are 2 km from the exchange and had about 8Mb with ADSL - just under the 10 - so we got upgraded - and there are a load of new telegraph poles all over the place as they cound not repair the buried conduit so the fibre is between telegraph poles. The speed is great - basically if you have more money it will go even faster and no interference. The people who live furthest from the exchange with a 1Mb connection are still waiting :- 
. No 4G here so thanfully this was a great option, and thanks again for the video - I always end up looking at the maps and retracing the journey - and wondering just how long your 2hr ascent would take me … probably about double…
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Our village has telegraph everywhere and over head 240v to almost every house. That made me:
a) not worried about stringing up a wire for HF, a 2m vertical for my digipeater and a 6M beam, as it’s unseen in the mâlée.
b) terrified of shutting down everyones Internet and polluting their mains when transmitting on 40m!!
So far, so good.
Insufficient ERP.
I’ve corrected my typo to “mains”.
I did manage to shut down my own Internet when transmitting 20w on 40m.
Corrected now, thanks to common mode chokes, mains filter and earthing system.
The first time I noticed it was when trying some sneaky ft-8 whilst on a 6 hour Zoom call for work.
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The only band I had trouble with was 160m with ADSL2+ - anything more than 5w seemed to make if fail… I could run 400w now - if I had a linear… 
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Hello Fraser, thanks for your video. As already mentioned, we can see Scotland from our home. I would like to see more about your setup, especially about the antenna. I will also record some videos of my activations for my channel. See you on youtube too.
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Thumbs up from me. Very interested in the route info on those less well travelled areas up there.
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Thanks Richard. That’s been the main aim - to show people what’s out there to be had!
I’ve not seen your videos before but being completely new to SOTA I like them and have subscribed. Only thing I would add is maybe a little into to the common setups you use for beginners. Thanks for sharing 
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Tony, thanks for the feedback. I’ll look at that in the future.
73, Fraser
Hi Fraser,
As I am running a SOTA channel already for a while here my thoughts.
Don’t put pressure on yourself on forcing yourself to make a video. I have reduced the number of videos and only make them if I have the feeling I can share something interesting.
Being it a interesting area, route, hiking partners, new equipment and so on.
For the “normal” bread&butter routes I have the feeling it is better not making videos before making videos with the same template.
Or sometime I am in the mood of just enjoying the hike for myself. No extra effort needed.
If you are looking for more views then adding equipment videos (antenna build, DIY projects, …) will bring way more views then a SOTA hike. It is a niche of a niche.
And of course the self promotion on other social media like Facebook and so on.
73 Joe
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You’re absolutely correct there!
I’m not looking for a million fans and views, I just wanted to make sure that the people that do look at them find them of interest.
As for filming everything, I am torn between keeping going with cataloguing every summit, so that there is a library for anyone to look up …or…just do the big ones. However, I wouldn’t want someone who’s lacking a bit of fitness and maybe just starting off to think that you need to be a super fit human to do SOTA. So, I’ll keep going for now.
As I mentioned in my original post, I’ve always filmed hobby stuff. I enjoy the editing too and am getting slicker at it. I think the first 15 minute film took me three hours to edit!
Thanks for your comments Joe. Much appreciated.
73,
Fraser
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Fraser
As you are asking for a bit of feedback I thought I would come back to you. My day job is lecturing in Photography and Video Production at a University. As a SOTA activator I really enjoy your videos, however that probably couldn’t be counted as meaningful feedback.
There are a couple of questions you should ask yourself, the first is What do you want to achieve with the channel/video’s and who do you want your potential audience to be?
If it is SOTA enthusiasts, I think it is about right, we can relate to what you are doing and will stick around to see who you are getting QSOs with. However if you are hoping to increase your subscriber base, you might find the videos are too long.
On the YouTube studio page, look at the Analytics section and see how long people are sticking around. You might be shocked at how little time people stay on a video. This is nothing to do with you, we live in the age of instant gratification where people surf like butterflies, landing for a short period and then moving on. There are a lot of distractions on YT! Some research that I share with my students shows that within 5 minutes on YouTube you will have lost 95% of your audience. So you need to find ways of making the Video ‘sticky,’ encouraging people to hang around. One way of doing this could be to give people more information. An example of this would be to show Maps and maybe even post route .gpx files. My wife is a Mountain bike leader and makes video’s about routes in the Peak District, as soon as she started including routes her comments and subscriptions started to go up. She was shocked that people wouldn’t do this for themselves.
Maybe show maps on screen, so potential activators can use your videos to help plan their trips. Show summaries of QSOs and bands, so again people can use the information to make choices for themselves. Others have mentioned talking about the kit you use, us nerds love that!
I have to say 3 hours to edit a 15min video is good going!
I will leave it at that, if you need any other help don’t hesitate to get back to me. Keep up the good work!
Martin
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Martin, That’s brilliant feedback! Thank you for taking the time to explain the trade secrets!
I experimented recently with putting un-edited QSO footage in a couple of videos and that really stretched them out beyond the half hour, which I was a bit uncomfortable with TBH. Previous to that I was trying to keep it down to 15 minutes.
I already know and see lots of youtube videos with fake/exaggerated “Hooks” to get you in and I don’t want to go down that road, but I probably should add some more information around routes and other useful links etc…
As I said, I’m not fanatical about getting a million hits/subscribers, I just want to do something that folk find of value, should they decide to venture into GM-land for a bit of SOTA
Thanks again, 73 Fraser
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The last video I made I almost didn’t post it as I thought there was too much video of the ascent and not enough playing radio. Obviously had I chose to do HF too there might have been more radio. Though thinking about it anyone who has not activated this summit may find it useful. I’m working on finding the right balance.
73 Chris M0RSF
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Hi Chris, enjoyed your video, thanks. Tell me, what antenna were you using?
73 de Geoff vk3sq
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I liked this one. Nice and relaxing to watch.
The antenna I used on this activation was a MFD (Multi Function Dipole) which is basically a half wave dipole that can be used horizontally or vertically. It is light, fits in almost any rucksack and works well.
73 Chris M0RSF
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Good attitude, I completely agree with that.
Exactly the dilemma that I’m having!
I didn’t want my channel to be too SOTA orientated. I want to do a variety of subjects (including SOTA) but almost all of my recent videos have been SOTA based…purely because that is what I have been doing a lot of recently.
I’m feeling like my SOTA videos are starting to become a bit repetitive.
Exactly the point I wanted to drive home in my videos. I have a video due to go live tomorrow afternoon called “The Easiest SOTA Summit In England?”
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