GM/SI-159 Ben Geary

Isle of Skye 2015

GM/SI-159 Ben Geary

02/06/2015

The trip to the Isle of Skye had been planned for some time and suitable SOTA summits had been identified.  We arrived on the Island on Saturday but our activations were curtailed by high winds and heavy rain so it was not until Tuesday that conditions improved enough for us to venture on to the hills and mountains. By ‘we’ I mean my XYL Val, Len and Gwyneth. 

 The parking spot

Ben Geary is a nice easy summit and is situated on the Waternish peninsula on the North part of the Island by Knockbreck.  Parking just above the school at NG262602 next to a gate, stile and water tanks we made our way NNW towards the summit for 1.68Kms following a faint quad bike trail.

 

 Towards the summit

There is a communications tower on the summit but there were no interference problems on any of the bands. Listening on the 60m band I heard Paul GM4MD/p calling and my first entry in the log was an s2s with him. Paul was on GM/SS-221 and happy that this contact was now a ‘complete’ for him...thanks Paul.

10:15z	GM4MD/P	5MHz	SSB	Paul s2s
10:29z	G0RQL	5MHz	SSB	Don
10:30z	G8MIA	5MHz	SSB	Andy

I wonder what the story is behind this shovel?

I was not so successful with my calls on 60m and even though I had spotted only Don and Andy made the log.  I set up the linear and with a call to Paul who was now on 40m I announced a QSY lower and was very soon into a massive pile up of regular chasers and others....

10:39z	GM4MD/P	7MHz	SSB	Paul s2s diff band
10:40z	MW3WSC	7MHz	SSB	Wil
10:42z	G0TRB	7MHz	SSB	Roger
10:42z	G8VNW	7MHz	SSB	Nick
10:43z	G4ZRP	7MHz	SSB	Brian
10:44z	G6TUH	7MHz	SSB	Mike
10:44z	G0RQL	7MHz	SSB	Don
10:45z	PA7ZEE	7MHz	SSB	Geert
10:45z	G0VWP	7MHz	SSB	Terry
10:46z	M0JLA	7MHz	SSB	Rod
10:46z	GM3IBU	7MHz	SSB	Bill, Orkney Is.
10:47z	M0TVU	7MHz	SSB	Paul
10:47z	G0TDM	7MHz	SSB	John
10:47z	G4WSB	7MHz	SSB	Bill
10:48z	G3RMD	7MHz	SSB	Frank
10:49z	PA0WMR	7MHz	SSB	Willy
10:49z	GM0AXY	7MHz	SSB	Ken
10:50z	GM4COX	7MHz	SSB	Jack
10:50z	G3OKA	7MHz	SSB	John
10:52z	G0TDM	7MHz	SSB	John
10:53z	M5GAC	7MHz	SSB
10:54z	G4APO	7MHz	SSB
10:54z	2I0DJM	7MHz	SSB	Joe
10:55z	M3FEH	7MHz	SSB	Karl
10:55z	PA0B	7MHz	SSB	Rob
10:56z	GW6DGU	7MHz	SSB	Roy
10:59z	M0IML	7MHz	SSB	Barry
11:02z	G4WHA/A	7MHz	SSB	Geoff
11:03z	GI4ONL	7MHz	SSB	Victor
11:03z	EA2CKX	7MHz	SSB	Pedro
11:03z	G6LKB	7MHz	SSB	David

With the others now ready to leave as it was starting to spit with rain I told them to make their way down and I would remain just to give a call into the WAB net which once again produced a good run of chasers eager for the Trig TP 1269.. I then gave a few calls on 2m but nobody replied.  Thanks to all the chasers and to Paul for that single s2s.

11:17z	G4SQA	7MHz	SSB	Dave
11:17z	MM/ZL1AAO	7MHz	SSB	Bruce
11:20z	G0FEX	7MHz	SSB	Ken
11:21z	G7BGA	7MHz	SSB	Geoffrey
11:21z	G7AFM	7MHz	SSB	Phil
11:21z	G0GWY	7MHz	SSB	Geoff
11:22z	SM6CNX	7MHz	SSB	Dan
11:22z	DL7UCW	7MHz	SSB	Ben
11:22z	MM3PDM/M	7MHz	SSB	Peter

Left on my own with my Bothy bag!

During the stormy weather we had not been idle and had visited quite a few ‘tourist attractions’, visited many coffee shops including souvenir and book shops.  A book which caught my eye and was compelled to buy was ‘Trig Point Walks on the Isle of Skye’ by Ian Stewart and Alistair Christie. It contains a wealth of historical information and routes to all the trig points on the Island...came in very useful over the following days :)

Thanks to Len for most of the pics.  Over the next few days I will upload our other Skye activations until then...

73 Allan GW4VPX