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The challenge Before I post about the hills I’ve been climbing this weekend, I should probably explain why I’ve come to the Vosges, a very beautiful hilly area in Eastern France. As you are probably aware if you’re reading this page, I participate in Summits on the Air (SOTA), an amateur radio award scheme for…
During this week’s Camb-Hams DXpedition to Islay as GS3PYE/P, three of us (G4ERO, GW2HFR and I) went to Beinn Tart a’Mhill, one of Islay’s one-point SOTAs (GM/SI-185). This is quite possibly also the easiest summit on the island, as it’s an ex-MOD transmitter site, with a nice path all the way to the top. Access…
After yesterday’s exertion, I woke with a very stiff leg and, first thing in the morning, I even found myself hobbling up the slight incline to the campsite toilet block. Not a great sign for my original plans to walk up nearby Moel Siabod! Fortunately, I tend to make backup plans on my SOTA trips…
The early May Bank Holiday weekend this year has seen some unseasonably stunning weather, so it seemed a pity not to head to the hills and get a few more SOTA points. Moel Eilio (GW/NW-022) Moel Eilio is a 6-point hill in the shadow of Snowdon. Most people who operate from here do so by…
Yesterday, 21st April 2018, I took my parents to visit Canterbury for a day out. On the return, as it was a beautiful and unseasonably warm day for April, we stopped off at Detling Hill so I could do a quick SOTA activation. Detling Hill itself is a lovely place but boring from a SOTA…
Over the past several weeks, I’ve had a project to resurrect an old PK-232MBX AX.25 packet radio Terminal Node Controller (TNC, or basically what we’d today call a MODEM) so I can send email over radio. The ultimate objective is to use WinLink Express with our local Raynet group. In particular, we’re involved in a…
This weekend, for the combined reasons of interference from Low Power Devices and also an opportunity to enable a new DMR repeater for Cambridge, the well-established GB3PY repeater has moved frequency. It was on 433.200MHz (+1.6MHz split) and is now on 430.900MHz (+7.6MHz split). This brought an interesting question: other than website and email, how…
I’m a couple of weeks late writing this post but on the weekend of 23-24 March, I again headed down to the UK Scout Headquarters station at Gilwell Park to join the team operating GB2GP for the CQ WPX SSB contest. Rather than me repeat what has already been said, a write-up of the event…
Following the snow on Pen Y Fan yesterday, I decided to cut my long weekend short and to head back to Cambridge on Easter Sunday, stopping at Black Mountain on the Welsh-English border on the way home. GW/SW-041 Black Mountain 6-point Black Mountain is a lovely walk, which I last did just before Christmas. I…
Having stayed the night at the very comfortable Cwmdu Campsite (only ten minutes’ drive from Mynydd Troed – where I finished yesterday – and Mynydd Llangorse), I awoke to a very wet pitch. It had rained heavily all night, and I was aware that that rain would have fallen as snow on the summits. I…