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I’ve recently returned from what has become an annual tradition of spending Easter weekend away climbing hills for SOTA. Last year (and admittedly Easter was earlier), the Beast from the East had just hit and I was walking through snow on Pen-Y-Fan. This year, the weather was completely different with bright sunshine, hardly any wind,…
Enthused by a fairly easy 18 points yesterday on Pico Ruivo and Pico do Arieiro, I aimed to do two one-point hills today, but Penha de Aguia is a much more difficult hill, and so I only had time (and energy!) to do this one. This replan while walking meant that I accidentally ended up…
Continuing my SOTA trip to Madeira, and following on from yesterday’s activations of Pico Ruivo do Paul and Pico Chao dos Terreiros, today I did two of the larger summits on the island. Pico Ruivo (CT3/MI-001) The highest point on the island, Pico Ruivo (not to be confused with Pico Ruivo do Paul, which I…
Last week I spent some time on a family holiday in Madeira, during which I also spent three days in the hills doing SOTA activations. The first thing to know about Madeira from a radio perspective is that although the DXCC prefix is CT3, that prefix is reserved for residents. The prefix authorised for CEPT…
I’ve spent the last week with Rob M0VFC and Dan M0WUT on a DXpedition to Montserrat as VP2MUW. This post is part-diary, part-informative for anyone who wishes to follow in our footsteps. Travelling to Montserrat Montserrat’s main airport was destroyed by the volcano eruptions in 1997 and 2010. Today, there is just a small airstrip…
This weekend saw the annual SSB Field Day event and once again I took part with the Camb-Hams at G3PYE/P. For the past couple of years, we’ve entered with a checklog because frankly life is too short for QRP and we got a lot more enjoyment from the contest by using an amp. This time,…
As a result of the very hot weather we had during June and July, I haven’t been doing much SOTAing for the last few weeks but now the weather is somewhat cooler, I took the opportunity of the Bank Holiday weekend to travel to the Peak District to get a few more points. Kinder Scout…
I’ve been pondering for a while about whether or not I should add my own opinions to the polemic about FT8, the now year-old digital mode that has taken the ham radio world by storm. A few things recently have convinced me that I should, which I’ll go into a little later in this short…
With 80 SOTA points in the bag from Saturday and Sunday, by Bank Holiday Monday it was looking likely that 100 points in a weekend might be achievable. We stayed the night t the Hotel L’Ermitage in Ventron, since this is right at the start of the path up the Haut de Rouge Gazon, the…
After a restful night, it was time to get up early for the second day of my attempt to get 100 SOTA points in a Bank Holiday weekend in the Vosges. Today would involve a bit more walking than yesterday. FL/VO-002 Le Hohneck Le Hohneck, about 15 minutes’ drive from La Bresse, is potentially a…