Category: SOTA activations

Due to construction projects I have had on the go for a while I haven’t been out to do much actual radio lately. But I recently purchased a Baofeng UV-82HP 144/432MHz handheld as I am driving up to the top of two 14,000feet+ SOTA summits in Colorado later in the year and thought it would be rude not to activate them. I got the handheld as the trip is with non radio friends and is for sight seeing so I wanted something small and quick to deploy. So when myself and YL found somewhere new to go for our weekend jaunt up the mountains I quickly checked if it was a SOTA summit and turned out it was, so I grabbed the 82HP and took it! I have not used it as yet so at least I could check it worked!

We parked at the start of the very well defined track leading us most of the way to the summit:

The day started cloudy but dry but turned out beautiful later. This picture was actually taken on the way back but is on the early stages of the track. That is Fan Gyhirych on the right in the distance:

I had 3G coverage on Three network along the track which was handy as I could revise my rather hopeful estimation of arrival time on my SOTA alert! The view whilst updating my alert:

Once on the summit I was able to spot myself and my call on 145.500MHz was quickly answered. Moving down to 145.475MHz to carry on. First QSO I was a bit weak with the other station but after a call for QRZ when we closed I had a good strong station return. The wind was quite keen on our bare hands, my YL was logging for me as we were stood up. With 4 QSOs in the bag to qualify as an activation my further QRZ calls went unanswered so it was time to move on.

Heading back down the views from the summit ridge were great today:


All in all quite pleased with the little UV-82HP as people could hear me pretty well on its supplied rubber duck antenna. I did have an issue where it seemed to be slow in opening receive after transmit and as a result I often missed first couple letters of a returning call but I found some squelch tail delay settings to turn off which will hopefully correct this.

Only 4 QSOs but enough to qualify.

Been a while since I have been out due to other commitments and various reasons, but I had the chance of heading up to Skirrid Fawr GW/SW-106 to activate it for the first time (for me). As it was a Sunday afternoon the car park was packed as ever, even though I left it later in the afternoon. But I managed to squeeze in at the car park found at SO329164 and head up the usual path. This takes you up through the trees (at any junctions go up) and to a gate by a stone wall. Turn right here and head up again taking a left up some steps a couple hundred metres after. Up some stone steps then go right and onto the ridge. Easy to find your way up this one even in complete white out. The walk is 1.3 miles and a height gain of 277m, reasonably steep in places but not too bad even with my 40lb sack.

As I was getting rained on I donned my waterproof trousers on the ridge not wanting to sit for some hours in cold wet trousers. Luckily shortly after it stopped raining. Nearly always works! By now it was not that far from sunset and I managed to grab a couple of nice views.

Looking West from the summit over where I set up the station.

View back along the ridge I just ascended.

There is a nice little area West of the summit where you can set up and be out of the way of the main of the foot traffic. As it was getting on I only had one set of visitors that I heard. Though once the headphones were on there may have been more.

As there is pretty decent mobile internet access from Skirrid I decided to road test my new Microsoft Surface Pro 3 using the phone as a WiFi hotspot. This worked out well. I ended up being there about 2¼ hours and over that time the Galaxy S5 went from a full charge (at home) to about 75% battery power. That included taking the photos on this page and also syncing those photos and my Log4OM files via Dropbox. I was able to keep an eye on the SOTA alert page (for what it was worth!) and use the lookup on the logging program Log4OM. I did disable the instant upload of the QSO information in case of typos. The integral fold out stand for the Surface Pro 3 was good as it hokked over my knees and kept the keyboard and screen at a suitable place to use. As the text is quite small on the Surface I was introduced to the joys of steamed up glasses when coming back into the beach shelter after and antenna tweak. Quite pleased with the Surface Pro 3 as it still has 70% battery power left.

I started on 40m hoping to get some inter G SOTA and WAB trig chasers but things were very slow even after self spotting. An activation during the ARRL Sweepstakes Contest was possibly not one of my better ideas. I worked a couple of stations on 40m then I kept getting someone moving onto my frequency and they seemed oblivious to me. I then noticed when I transmitted the SWR bar graph was going up. Normally I have no reading on my link dipole. I checked outside and saw a couple of sections of the fishing pole had retracted and the ends of the dipole were on the ground. After sorting that out I decided to try 20m. The band was full of the ARRL contesters and as I wasn’t prepared with the complex exchange data I tried to avoid them. I managed to find a clearish frequency and struggled along with slow QSO rate despite spotting myself again until a contester came on frequency that definitely wasn’t there before for about an hour. I tried 40m again and worked a few more before I quit. I noticed that in all the time I was there only 3 other SOTA spots popped up and none of those on a band or mode I could chase.

The main reason I packed in was my butt was killing me. The Surface Pro was great but it meant staying in one position all the time and I need a better seat than the garden kneeler I have. I was starting to feel the chill too, though inside the shelter was pretty comfortable compared to the wind chill outside. Tonight’s lesson learnt is no matter how windy or wet it is, no matter how stiff your fingers are, it IS worth the time to pack your guy strings away the way you normally do, that never ever has a tangle OR you will spend ages breaking your back in the kitchen later untangling an impossible jumble.

Overall 21 QSOs which is a bit disappointing but a few new countries worked.

As things have been quiet lately I have been doing other things that need attending to but I needed a radio fix. First I thought I’d pop up to my local drive on site that I use for testing antennas and setting up mast systems etc, but then I though why not pop up to Garway Hill G/WB-013 again to activate that again. So I did.

There is a small space to park at SO444247 that is possible to fit a few cars in. A fairly gentle but continuous slope takes you up the obvious track leading to the top field and trig point. The walk up is only a half mile and 121 metres of ascent.

Took my two daughters (both early 20s now) to get them some fresh air, but soon left the eldest to push the youngest’s wheelchair up the hill for me as time was getting on and it’s slow hard work especially with a decent rucksack on your back as well.

By the time I reached the summit the view had gone. This is a picture the girls took on the way up.
At least it wasn’t actually raining. Yet.

For this activation I had considerably reduced the pack weight. Most of it by switching from the FT-987D to a new FT-857D. I also left the beach shelter at home though I would have been better operating from it as it turned out. Also I saved a fair bit of weight switching from a steel lump hammer for the pegs to a lightweight plastic one.
That was very nice, though the hard ground and light hammer did require some fairly furious hammering to get the small tent pegs in. This resulted in a wild inaccurate swing terminating at my forefinger which is sporting a nice lump and bruise today.

System set up I started on 20m, found a free frequency and spotted myself with Rucksack Radio Tool. Good signal on Garway with Three. I even saw 4G flash up now and then!
No instant pile up tonight, but first contact was in the States, and most of first 10 were too. A nice start. Interestingly, although inverted V antennas are meant to be pretty much omni-directional I did set up with the dipole broadside on to East and West. Steady going, longest gap between QSOs about 3 or 4 minutes. With 23 QSOs in the bag including a Stateside S2S (just!) I decided to switch to 40m to see what was about. I also switched to the other battery at the same time to share the drain.

40m seemed pretty busy and finding a free frequency without an adjacent strong signal took a little while and wasn’t necessarily a 100% success on the lack of adjacent strong signals. I did notice a lot of my QSO signals were really strong both ways. The QSOs came in slow but steady getting 30 QSOs in about 40 minutes. During which I had to get out the umbrella and hold it down with my rucksack and edge the radio underneath into the dry. A lull in callers was an opportune moment to go QRT as my girls by now were bored and cold. I was wet and cold. Although it was only about 14°C the water and air cooling had turned my fingers pretty stiff and I was shaking a bit with the cold. Pretty sure my personal CPU was running slow too! All would have been prevented in the beach shelter.
“Man who not make mistake not make anything”

Overall 53 QSOs and one Summit to Summit contact.

Today I thought I would activate the highest point in the Black Mountains for a score of 8 points. I was going out for a walk with my girlfriend anyway so I roped her in to share the carrying of the weight as I am currently using my hefty Yaesu FT-897D.
We parked at the end of a small lane above Pengenffordd to start the 3 mile walk. The ascent was 490 metres of slogging, but the route we chose is up a very nice ridge and we had fairly good visibility today. Thankfully it was fairly cloudy or we have been even more soaked in sweat by the time we got to Waun Fach.

There has been a lot of path work done on Waun Fach recently and there is a nice dry stone path heading from Waun Fach towards Pen-Y-Gadiar. I didn’t actually recognise the summit as the peaty bowl seems to have gone. I did come prepared with some home made peat/snow stakes though and they were required. They are 535mm long, 1×1″ made from 1.5mm thick aluminium.

There was a small patch of decent ground inside the curves of the new path and we set up there. Something else new to me on Waun Fach were biting midges! I’d planned to use the beach shelter to operate from, but it became a midge shelter too!


Inside the midge shelter

Improvements from my first day’s activations last week are the use of my digital clock from my VHF contest kit for QSO times and printed log sheets and clipboard rather than a make-do notepad. Also peg hammer (although not needed here, pegs just pushed into the soft peat) reduced from 300 gram rubber mallet to 106 gram bright yellow plastic hammer for £1.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get any service on my 3 network when I wanted it (it did kick in now and then) so I was unable to spot myself even by SMS. Or even tell my mate what frequency I was on to spot me. So QSOs were slow. Instead of 2 or 3 a minute it was a QSO every 2 or 3 minutes at best.
I did manage 21 QSOs with one Summit 2 Summit QSO. A lot of lighthouses were being activated today!

The last SOTA summit I am activating today on my first day out doing SOTA after G/WB-013 Garway Hill and GW/SW-020 Graig Syfyrddin.

This was a longer and steeper approach than the previous summits and also it was by now midday and the sun was beating down. I looked at where some activators had parked on Google Streeview but couldn’t really spot any space to park. So I decided to use a spot I know at the boardwalk start at SO293212. One good advantage is the car was left in tree cover and the woods were nice and shaded for the initial ascent. The route I took is 1.2 miles long and involves 201 metres of ascent.

Didn’t take any pics really on this activation as I was a bit hot and bothered by but I did remember to take a quick pic halfway through taking the mast and antenna down.
The view is towards GW/SW-016 Ysgyryd Fawr with the beginnings of GW/SW-020 Graig Syfyrddin on the far left.

Once set up I found clear frequency on 20m and spotted myself on SOTAwatch using Rucksack Radio Tool via the internet on the 3 network. Another nice pileup soon had more than enough QSOs to quality the summit.

When it had gone quiet I decided to try 40m again, so dropped the ends of the link dipole down to make the join to activate the 40m antenna. I eventually found a free frequency not too close to any splatter and spotted myself again. A couple of calls and the pileup was there again like magic. Lots of UK stations now as well as overseas of course. I did get some reports of an odd audio clipping which I am yet to diagnose. This is the first time I have used this rig on 40m so I hope it’s OK. Worryingly the other other alternative is I deep discharged my LifePo4 battery which is a worry. Something for me to look into.

Overall 65 QSOs and two more Summit to Summit contacts.

My second activated summit after G/WB-013 Garway Hill on a lovely Saturday morning.

There is a small space to park one car at SO412212 that is possible to get off the road enough and be clear of all nearby gate accesses. A fairly gentle but continuous slope takes you up the obvious track leading to the top field and trig point. I used to drive up here to the summit in a Mini 1000 many years ago. The walk up is only a half mile and 121 metres of ascent.

A glorious sunny almost completely wind free summit visit. Perfect calm except for the swarms of flies. I actually tried putting my Goretex shell on because of them but as it’s black and I was hot anyway that lastest about 10 seconds.

The view back towards Garway Hill.

The weather station up there.

View towards an alternative approach that I have used when geocaching in the recent past.

Again here the wind was so gentle I probably didn’t need the guys again, but it was good practice to set it up for me as the Garway activation assembly didn’t go as smoothly as I would prefer. Not a problem today but in poor weather I want to be on the ball.

I positioned the radio in the shade of the trig point to make the display easier to read and to keep it cooler. I noticed once I’d settled down that the flies mostly left me alone. It must be moving targets that attract their attention.

I didn’t see a soul on this summit from the car and back. I found a clear frequency and spotted myself on the SOTAwatch using Rucksack Radio Tool via the internet on the 3 network and started calling and soon I had another pileup. Quite a bit of activity but did quieten down. Aware of conserving battery I closed down and moved on with 32 QSOs in the log. One more Summit to Summit contact.

Onto the last summit today GW/SW-026 Bryn Arw…

After much research, advice, shopping, antenna building and soldering, today I did my first SOTA summit activations.

I’d planned to do four summits, but battery charging took longer than expected so I only had one charged to use. So I decided to skip G/WB-024 Aconbury Hill partly due to the batteries and partly due to my not knowing the terrain, so decided to start with G/WB-013 Garway Hill as this hill is well known to me as I have spent many long nights up there on the radio in the times when you could still drive up to the very top. Next stop would be GW/SW-020 Graig Syfyrddian which is the next closest and another hill I used to drive to the top of in my Mini 1000 for some all night radio. Final stop was GW/SW-026 Bryn Arw, a smaller top in the Black Mountains I recently visited for the first time knocking off some geocaches. I skipped GW/SW-016 Ysgyryd Fawr as with it being the weekend and a lovely day it would be teeming with people.

G/WB-013 Garway Hill
I parked at the end of the track at SO444247 and set off for the fairly gentle half mile walk  and 64 metres of ascent. This is a good thing as my sack weight was pretty hefty. Hefty enough to start me thinking I should add an FT-857 to the family of FT-897D and FT-817 I currently have.

The familiar summit building at the top.

A few of the locals.

View from the top with two summits in distance, one of them my next stop.

My portable station ready for unpacking.

Time to set up the antenna. As my coax is heavier than some and I like to use as much of my 8metre pole as possible I am velcro cable tieing the coax to the mast so it doesn’t hang off the pole and cause more of a bend than required.

Although it was such a light breeze and lovely day that the pole would probably self support on the fishing umbrella stake I am using at the mast base I still prefer to attach my guys. This also helps let me keep it nice and upright. I’m using white nylon cord for part of the guys but at the ground and the ends of the dipole I am using high visibility yellow nylon tent guys. These are £1 for a pack of four each 3.5metres from Poundland.

I decided to set up on one of the benches in the shade so I wouldn’t have to contend with the bright sun and reflections and also keep cool. I actually had to put my Goretex shell on as the light morning breeze was a little chilly.

Once switched on I could see there was something wrong with the radio. Where was my solid S7 to S8 of noise?! I always loved hilltop operating, and this is another reason to love it! I probably could have turned off my base station DSP settings if I had thought about it.

I started on 40m as I have not yet used 40m as no antenna at home, but it seemed a bit manic with a lot of Italian sounding strong rag chewing going on. So I reverted back to 20m. I worked a few portable stations tuning around the band then found myself a clear frequency and spotted myself on the SOTAwatch using Rucksack Radio Tool via the internet on the 3 network. A couple of calls and the pileup started. I was surprised how well the spotting works! This was like old times contesting. However I soon found my make do enquiries pad I brought for logging was greatly lacking for a single op. First item on the things to improve next time!

After about 40 minutes the pileup had gone and I had 40 QSOs total in the log. I’d also used 2.3Ah of my 8.4Ah battery. I got three Summit to Summit contacts too.

All in I am pretty pleased with the first activation and all the equipment.

Onto the next summit GW/SW-020 Graig Syfyrddin…