Earlier today, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity of activating Allermuir Hill, which is SOTA reference GM/SS-171. I was invited by Martin 2M0KAU and Mark MM6BJJ both of whom live in Dundee.
Martin picked me up shortly after 8:00 am (07:00 UTC) from where I am staying in Edinburgh and we were on our way to the Pentlands, south of Edinburgh. Read the rest of this entry
View from Cringle Moor, North Yorkshire
After an enjoyable evening at the WEARS club the night before it was down to business and I was up at about 5:00 am (yawn). It had been arranged that Carl 2E0HPI would arrive at my hotel at around 5:45 am and we would embark on our 40 minute journey to the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, ready to ascend the summit. Summit operation is something I’ve not done to date so I was looking forward to the new experience. Read the rest of this entry
I’ve got to admire Carl 2E0HPI’s enthusiasm for portable operation. We finished our activation of Cringle Moor, North Yorkshire at around 09:30 UTC and were ready to do the next one the same day.
We arranged to meet again at around 16:30 local time at my hotel in Hartlepool and the plan was to activate a flora and fauna site on the Durham coast which is park reference GFF-107. Read the rest of this entry
We did a walk there about a month after moving to Bunbury earlier this year when we had overseas visitors and we started from the Wellington Dam and walked to the Honeymoon Pool about 6 kilometres along the Collie River. It’s a very nice park but very basic with few facilities.
It was a fairly pleasant day on the afternoon of September 28 and we weren’t staying too far from the coast so decided to try a portable radio session. We didn’t have the luxury of a rental car on Benbecular so we had to haul the gear ourselves.
Unfortunately as has been the case for most of the time in Scotland, as you’ll see from the photos, I couldn’t get as close to the coast as I would have liked. We walked about 15-20 minutes through a field owned by the B&B where we were staying in Balivanich and reached the coast. We walked some distance to try and find a better vantage point, but I wanted to be up and running fairly quickly before it got dark.
We set up the Buddipole against a gate using the elastic straps and some basic guying and I was on air by about 16:00 UTC. I set up on 10 metres and only made several contacts before packing up. I also worked one of the contacts Wolf CU/DH2IW again on 10 metres later on the trip from Castlebay, on the Isle of Barra.
 Jonathan portable in Balivanich, Isle of Benbecula |
 Jonathan portable in Balivanich, Isle of Benbecula |
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