Ham Radio

This morning Kris MM7OAI and I met to walk up and activate Ben Venue. We started the walk at the car park facing Loch Achray which has a charge of £5 for the day. This car park is on the Duke’s Pass which is an outstanding road for those who enjoy a spirited drive. The walk was tracked by GPS and uploaded here to Strava for those interested. The forecast for the day wasn’t great, we anticipated poor visibility as we gained altitude and expected rain for the walk up, luckily we avoided the rain which certainly made things better....

It was time for Douglas MM7DCD to propose our next SOTA activation, he proposed Ben Vorlich and both Kris MM7OAI and I agreed this would be good one. It was also the first six-point summit for each of us. For me personally, it’s also my fourth munro. There are actually two “Ben Vorlich” summits, they are both munros and don’t sit too far apart. Our target for this activation was the one next to Loch Sloy (GM/SS-013) rather than the one often completed with Stùc a’ Chròin (GM/SS-008)....

My activation for today was GM/SS-064 Tinto Hill which sits south of Glasgow, it’s a very popular walk and as it exceeds 700 meters in height is classified as a four point summit. It’s also a very popular one for SOTA with 145 activations to date! Fun fact, my first ever QSO when I registered my foundation callsign was with a SOTA activator on Tinto! I was joined on this activation with Douglas MM7DCD and also Kris MM7OAI....

In the past I’ve used WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation) to test HF propagation on various HF bands. It’s a great way to confirm a band is open, even though you may hear little to no activity or receive any response to a CQ call. You could also say it’s another way of demonstrating the bands are not dead. Another way to check the band is to go to the FT8 or data modes section of the band and listen but that’s digressing from this topic....

This was my first time activating two summits in one day, the walk in to both Carleatheran and Stronend is the same 50 minute track starting just outside the village of Kippen. The route map is shown below, I completed this activation with Douglas MM7DCD. If you’d like to view the route on Strava, you can do so by clicking here. This was a long one, total walking time was just under 6 hours with over 15 miles/34,000 steps walked....

It has been a few weeks since my last SOTA activation and with the weather looking reasonable I met up with Douglas in Muirkirk, Ayrshire to activate the two-point summit GM/SS-120 Cairn Table. I was actually in this area a couple of months back to activate GM/SS-184 Middlefield Law, I didn’t write a blog post for that one but did make a video on TikTok which you can view here if you’re interested....

Although a successful one, this wasn’t a great activation. I tend to be a “glass half full” person but it’s difficult finding positive things to say here so it’ll be brief. Firstly I started off from the wrong point, I should have parked at a car park just off the haul road but instead started further up the road a little at the other side of a stream. I had to walk a little more and cross through a boggy field to get to the reservoir....

Following the activation of GM/SS-126 Earl’s Seat we decided to knock out the neighbouring summit Meikle Bin, which is also a two point summit. I completed this activation with Douglas again, I twisted his arm to try Portable Logger (PoLo) rather than logging his contacts on pen and paper - I think the jury is out! 😐 As with my prior walks I tracked this using Strava, if you’d like to view click here....

With the forecast looking positive for the weekend, I planned my first SOTA activation of the year. I met again with fellow club member Douglas MM7DCD for this walk. We parked up just off the A875 as you enter Killearn and started the walk at Lettre Farm. This route avoids the climb over Dumgoyne. I tracked the route on Strava if you’d like to view, click here to view. There isn’t much of a walk in to this one and you make progress pretty quickly....

I had a small job to do for someone in Bathgate today unrelated to radio and had been advised previously that the Cairnpapple summit was a very easy one, a short walk from the car. Stopping by to complete the activation was a no brainer, I was joined by Brian MM1HMZ for this activation. My first mistake was arriving there ahead of Brian and setting up the antenna at the wrong summit!...