Monday 9 April 2012

SOTA G/NP 004 SHINING TOR

Today myself and Linden M6PZZ activated our 3rd summit Shining Tor, the day started with a bit of breakfast and cup of coffee from subway in Stockport then onward to the Cat & Fiddle car park. On arrival there was plenty of mist and fog around so we could not get our bearings and not doing this Summit before we were unsure where we had to go after asking in the Cat & Fiddle pub we were still no nearer to finding out where to start the accent to the top. After a short drive back down the road we spoke to a guy walking his dog who pointed us in the right direction by this time the fog was starting to clear slightly so we could make out certain reference points we had been told by the man walking his dog. At no time on our accent or decent from the Summit did the rain stop bouncing down it wasn't a good day for a SOTA activation but we were not going to let that stop us. We made it to the top of the Summit within 30 minutes and to be honest did not want to start getting all our gear out so we just used our handhelds, mine a kenwood thf7e 5 watts and Lindens a yaesu vx8r 5 watts. I worked 4 stations M0VFO Steve, 2E0ZRA Chris, 2E0LKC Peter & 2E0LMD Ann that was enough to get me 2 points for activating the Summit so thanks to you guys for working me.
Below are a few pictures taken on the day as you can see it was wet and windy lets hope on my next Summit there will be a bit better weather 73's 2e0ijk Dave


Sunday 8 April 2012

SOTA G/NP 010 PEN-Y-GHENT

Today 06/04/12 Easter weekend I activated my 2nd summit Pen-Y-Ghent with Linden M6PZZ. It took just over an hour to get to the top stopping a couple of times on the way for pictures and for a rest. It was a cold day with snow on the ground which made it hard going and made us tired quite quickly. Arriving at the top we took a drink of coffee and started setting up our stations. My portable station the Yaesu FT817 mfj tuner and SRC X80 vertical antenna. Lindens station was a Yaesu VX8 handheld with a home made 2 meter beam. I had 5 contacts on 20 meters and then interested in how Lindens beam was working he let me put some calls out on his station working 8 stations on 2 meters including working 2E0YYY/P Mike on Summit G/SP 011 Freeholds Top a nice Summit to Summit qso. It was a great day and we are both looking forward toarranging our next SOTA activation within the next week or so.
Thank you to all the stations who worked 2E0IJK/P Northern Pennines 010 Pen-Y-Ghent below are pictures of the day.