A WWFF and a SOTA all in one trip!!

 
After an active Saturday, the last thing I could face was an inactive Sunday.

"Why don't I pop up to St Cyrus and do another of those WWFF things, and while I'm at it pop up the SOTA that was almost next to it?


So the plan was born to go and activate WWFF  GMFF-060 ,  St Cyrus National Nature Reserve, and on the way back go up Hill of Garvock SOTA  GM/ES-085 with Trig point TP 4135,   both in WAB NO76, in the county of Aberdeenshire.

Starting from the car park at the lower left there was a nice walk to be had through the dunes and round the whole bay before back tracking to climb up the steep path up the cliffs by Woodston.

Sadly it seems Ian has "a life" and wasn't available to come along to carry "the heavy thing"   ( the 7AH SLAB he usually gets landed with), so I had to manage the whole damn lot myself.   I don't want to get used to this!

 Once up at the top the views are worth having

and I found a nice seat to get setup on

at 1405Z  I had the station setup and ready to go, 5 minutes later than I had announced on the forum.  Immediately DK4RM came back  "I've been waiting here for you"..   Nice!   Just a few minutes later my SOTA friend,  Manuel,  EA2DT called in and then the dam burst.  I made a little under 120 QSOs in the net 120 minutes, in 25 different DXCC with many astonishing signal reports.   My little 4 watts was a 59+ signal from Switzerland to Spain to Slovenia and Croatia, and Greece, round through Russia to Finland.   It seems to work well round Europe from there.

After 2 hours I was beginning to get a little hoarse and ready to have a break as the sun headed lower

So time to stretch my legs again and head back to the car you can probably see a bit nearer than the river!

On the way I had a look at the ancient graveyard which dates from 880AD!

And a visit to an NNR wouldn't be complete without a view of the Flora and Fauna,   I forgot to take a photo of the huge patch of bluebells which gave one part under the cliffs a complete blue caste, but here's a few of them

 And it's hard to see the thousands of birds in this still photo:

but look for the small black dots around the rock.

Anyway, back at the car, I headed just 5km inland to climb steeply up the north flank of Hill of Garvock.   A Walk Highland reviewer,  http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3632 described an easy route up.   At the start there was a sign which warned walkers that from April to November  "Beasts" would be in the fields who might become aggressive because of their young.....   Nahh, no problem, so I set off.   It turned out that the "Beasts" were mixed Cows, Calfs and Bulls.  Some of whom had not heard of the Scottish "Right to Roam"

"GET OFF MY LAND"

So I "legged it",  and decided I didn't really fancy that route anyway, THIS was a much better way up


albeit being rather up and down and boggy and so on.....

Eventually I made it to the monument (an 18th century folly)

Where TP4135  made a useful aerial support

 Views from here are quite stunning, looking South over Montrose and out to sea towards England

 
And then round to the North West where the real hills start (and don't stop for a couple of hundred miles!!)

 
 

 So,  the whole point of coming here was the Radio  (who am I kidding!!)....   It seemed rather hard going,   I made a few on 40m around the UK, with some very strong signals on 40m.  Then tried 20m and wondered if I was going to get anyone!   I made KA1R in Mass' again, and EA2DT, Manuel,  no hill is now complete without!  OM1AX and OK2PDT were good signals as usual.  And I had a nice chat with Peter and Sylvia, OE5YYN and AUL.  After that it was definitely time to head down,  even though it's May the temperature started dropping like a stone,  they're still talking of "frost" in the glens!   It was nearly 2100 by the time I got back to the car, time to go home!

An enjoyable afternoon out bringing together two of the nicest ways of doing radio, I can't believe it took me so long to discover them!

GM/SS-259 Largo Law, just a nice easy walk?

WAB: NO40

Trig: TP4364

We were casting around for a local walk,  we had to be at the beach for around 5pm (high tide 19:30 more of that later) but desperately needed to get on a hill after a gruelling week.   Largo Law still needed doing, surprisingly,  Fifer Ian hadn't even been up it.  It won't be too hard a walk (ha ha ha) but the weather is nice so lets get up there.

Walk Highlands had a number of reviews and a route:  http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/fife-stirling/largo-law.shtml 

The contours looked a bit close together, we should have know what it would be like from reading that!   But it's only a little hill,  we must have been in denial.....

Yes, it really is quite a pull for most of the way,  you start at just 60m ASL and its a 230m climb most of it in the last km.   (if I say last km it hides the fact there were only two).   But it's a fun walk,  I wouldn't like to do it if it was a bit slick!

We hadn't even bothered "booting up" for this,  and took the excuse for a wee rest half way up

 

To admire the view, which quite honestly is worth admiring

Eventually the final summit (!) comes into sight,  but just as you get a nice view, too ugly mugs jump up for a photobomb

Made it!   Lets admire the view before setting up:

Rather than hogging the Trig I attempted to put the steel stake into the ground....  Wasn't going to work, it's solid rock 2cm below the surface!   Oh well, lets just use this handy concrete thing

I started out again with a visit to the nice WAB chaps,  they were friendly as usual and paired me up with Alastair mm6psx/p up near Thurso on the Hill of Lybster (TP3887) to pass round the net.   After 14 QSOs there (including Don G0RQL as usual), we spotted on the sotawatch and hoovered up some of the SOTA chasers including the first of 3 S2S  with Jack and Anne GM4COX+UXX/P on Moncrief gm/ss-276,  and QRPers Caroline, M3ZCB in Cambridge and Karl, M3FEH in Cornwall.   (Although I guess every QSO has a QRPer at one end,  I have 4W out!).

It was thirsty work,  thankfully we were prepared:

So a change to 20m was called for and immediately made the second S2S with Michael DB7MM/P on DM/BM-322.   And then a surprise call from Mike G6TUH with a cracking 57 report for me.  (he'd later said he didn't hear me on 40m!  odd conditions).  Many of the usual chasers then called in,  it would be a poor summit not to have a hello from Manuel EA2DT,  Robert SP8RHP and the others too numerous to mention!  Nice to have a call from KA1R in Mass' and then the 3rd S2S with YO9RAO/P  on YO/EC-093.   As the afternoon wore on I started to tire of cqing and went hunting, nice to catch a wwff with OK1VEI/P and then on 15M heard WB0QHJ calling CQ,  why not I thought.   The 40m dipole didn't seem to be working too well on 15m and the rig would only produce 2W and amazingly we made it all the way to Minnesota with that!

After a failed attempt to S2S with DL1KMN/P back on 40m it was time to QSY to the beach with 60+ QSOs in the log.

 Some 18 months ago some damn  fool (me) had said at the tail end of summer  "why don't we try and go for a swim in the north sea every month for the year"  (having achieved the easy 6).   Well we did that.  So what do you do at the end of 12 months?  Continue.  And at the end of 24 months?

The third year has started,  not with just one swim but two!!  The picture doesn't do justice to how nice it was,  the temperature at the car was 18C  and the sun came out again so it was really quite pleasant,  and a nice place to be

The usual residents were there

and were shamed by our bravery into proving they could do it too:

and then followed us up the beach to try to work out what these strange creatures were

And so a good time was had by all,  we made up for our sloth on the hill with a further 8km beach walk so 12km total isn't too bad.   It's not such a bad place to live.

My first Foray in World Wide Flora and Fauna

OOPs,   I originally posted this on the SOTA facebook page but bodged the pictures which came out as little Thumbnails.  Anyone feeling cheated can see the full size ones here!

I'd said:

This post is as woefully off topic as you can get,  I blame Danny Van Tricht​.  The weather in Scotland was pretty dire this weekend with low temperatures, a lot of showers (inland) and very high winds.  Not at all attractive for going up any hills.  I had taken note from some of Danny's previous posts that such a thing as WWFF not only existed but was quite popular with chasers.  So, I said, "lets go to the beach".   WWFF  GMFF-065  Tentsmuir Nature Reserve is somewhere I know very well, There are many good long walks you can do here and I already go here a lot.  (I've swam in the North Sea from here every month for the last 24!).  So for the first time, the radio came too.  It was a blast!  Over 60 qsos, mainly on 20m with an activation of about 2.5 hours.  We only had one heavy rain shower of about 30 minutes and just sat that out (useful to have the big plastic bags we take up the hill), but apart from that it was pretty nice as you can see.   40m was less productive, I thought the WABers would have been keen to get NO52 which only has a wee bit of land in it but there didn't seem many around.  Anyway,  thanks Danny,  I'll be doing more WWFF!

 And included these pictures,  here they are in their beautiful full size glory








 







PS.  I'd said we got caught in  one shower, I've just received a photo from that period of the activation:

Rambles in GlenAlmond - look Ma no gloves (or hat or fleece for a lot of the time)

It looked to be going to be not too bad a day,  bearing in mind that the week before we had left the car at 4C and then been  chased off a 500m hill by a blizzard the bar wasn't very high.

To leave the car with the temperature in double figures was amazing,  we were in Amulree as shown below, junction of the red and yellow road, so our walkstarted here rather than where the boot is, which is from http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=31009

 But as soon as you leave the A road, the route planned was pretty much as shown.

A few spots of rain hit us as we started out south from the car - surely not.....    but patches of blue were showing....  and anyway it was all going to be fine, I'd cheated death and survived

As we started up the hill, it became clear that I'd made a good choice in not bringing the proper winter coat as even the fleece was abandoned

The view starts to open up pretty quickly looking south at out destination, you can see Meall nan Caorach (Hill of the Sheep) on the left and Meall Reamhar (Stout or Fat Hill)  on the right,  reference GM/SS-104 and 105 respectively with a trig point TP4737  on Caorach.    

What we didn't at first clock was what was opening up behind

I make  no apology that there are quite a few photos looking this way from different points, it was just too nice

Eventually (well in pretty quick time actually) we made the first summit

Where we made use of the trig point as a handy mast support

And set to with the radio

and the Westmalle Trapist beer from belgium (just a small one).   All the while the weather improved

That's Schiehallion in the background.

A visit to the WAB net on 7.160 proved very pleasant and yielded 15 qsos in 7 minutes, they seemed very pleased with WAB NN93,the trig and the SOTA summit.   Then we moved down the band to try and get the SOTA regulars.   Spotting ourselves on the facebook page or sotawatch proved problematic.  The cell from Amulree did not have data, the only way we could get it was to walk a bit down the south flank where it was shielded and reconnect!  Eventually I was noticed and the usual folks were found, including Mike G6TUH, Ken and Christine, GM0AXY and GM4YMM, Mick, M0MDA and of course Don G0RQL amongst others.  Jim,  EI9GLB was very strong and nice to catch Carl 2E0HPI/P  from Hartlepool Lighthouse.   20M  yielded a few more regular friends,  OK1SDE,  EA2DT, Manuel (who also provided AO150I  celebrating 150 years of the ITU),  Guru, EA2IF, Robert SP8RHP  and several more who I miss when they're not there!

The view was very pleasant,

But if we were to make the next stop before too late we had to start down,  it was quite a steep slope down 160m and up the same,  looking at what we had to do looked quite daunting

Basically straight down and then straight up where the fence is.

It really is quite steep

Ian tried to get me across the slope but it doesn't do it justice

Eventually we made the cairn, and more rubbish views

We were a bit surprised to find it had taken us less than 30 minutes to get down and up!!

We soon had the station reassembled

And added Manuel EA2DT back into the log!  Plus several more regulars on 20m and then 40m with Ken and Christine GM0AXY and GM4YMM again and of course Don G0RQL!

17m yielded a few including OM1AX (also on 20) and although we could hear big signals from Japan and Thailand they couldn't hear our 4W.

By now the weather was becoming very pleasant

But it was time to head down

Looking north you can see the large wind farm, what's not to like, free electricity.  Beyond that is the Cairngorms

By now the sun was getting quite low in the sky, but I couldn't resist one last ridge so we stayed a bit higher than we should just because it was so nice

and yet another view of Loch Freuchie, just because it 's so pretty with the sun so low

And a last look back at the twin peaks behind us from the ridge

and then from the valley below

and finally from back at the car

Just 10 miles around the A822 we end up at Dunkeld having passed on the way the Strathbaan brewery just outside Amulree http://strathbraanbrewery.tel/ so it would have been rude not to stop for a pint of  "Due South"  overlooking the river Tay

This story seems to have had more than its usual share of pictures,  probably because it was such a "pretty" day!!

Cheers