For this activation we parked at Nick of Pendle, however on the approach to the parking spot I heard another SOTA operator (G5AIB) call CQ from the top of Great Coum. I managed to grab the contact on the truck radio from a small layby and then we quickly relocated to a better spot to park up and get our boots on for our own activation.
The hike to the summit is just short of 5 kilometers and there is no significant climb, it’s just a steady, rocky, undulating track. The walk up to the summit was fairly quiet, we only passed maybe a dozen walkers – but the summit itself was very busy. With perhaps 35 people at the top throughout the activation. That said, the activation zone is certainly big enough for you to get off the main track and away from the trig point.
This activation was very simple, thanks to the air being so busy – perhaps in part due to it being International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend. I made 8 contacts in 11 minutes on VHF, so I think I spent more time fussing over my station setup than I did actually transmitting. This was great since my hiking partner didn’t want to spend too much time at the summit, and there’s a small part of me that really likes fast activations like this.
My station setup for this activation was very simply, just my ICOM IC-705 sitting on the back of my backpack. You can see in this photo that I was also carrying a HF antenna – but I did the entire activation on VHF with 10 watts into the RH205 telescopic antenna.
Another great feature of this activation was starting it with a summit to summit (S2S) – so thanks to M1EYP for climbing The Cloud (G/SP-015) that day and coming back to my CQ. I made my first contact at 12:49 UTC and then very quickly contacted M0XLT, M7DTH, G6AEK, G4MYU, M0ALA, G6QA, and then M7GFW at 13:00 UTC. Extra thanks to G6AEK in particular, since he’s chased me on a previous activation too.
That’s about it for this activation, but the weather was kind, the air was busy, and the hike was easy.
Failures
Nothing to report. A very minor improvement could have been on the antenna connection. You can see above that I’ve got an odd BNC to SO-239 to BNC connection going on, but it worked. Last year I went through all of my kit and standardised on Anderson PowerPole connectors for power – I probably need to go through everything and standardise on a connector for coax too.
Successes
I always enjoy a rapid activation, when you’ve got all of your kit in good order and you can just drop your bag, make your contacts and descend quickly – it’s a good feeling. From leaving the car, hiking a total of 10 kilometers and activating a new summit – we were only out of the vehicle for about 2 hours and 40 minutes.