I was back on my previously alerted (non-ES) summit of Morrone, GM/CS-060, which is just outside Braemar and has a nice path up to the summit. I had to do the school drop off first, and so I wanted something quick to get to the top to and join in with everyone else.

As I walked up to the top, I heard others starting to call on 2m. I worked a few with our SOTA club call, GM0ESS, and whilst Fraser, MM0EFI, was working Paul, G4IPB, I managed to get into the AZ to then start using my call for S2Ss. In no time at all, I had four 2m S2Ss, although I missed Gavin and Andy who were in the Angus hills, as they’d already left to start the journey up to meet us for lunch. Shame, as Gavin was on Monamenach (GM/ES-028), and no-one goes there! Given all the planned activity, I’d brought the IC-705, together with a little 2m amp I picked up on ebay a while ago, and thought I’d try some 2m SSB.

I was using the slim G for the antenna, so vertically polarised. After 15 minutes or so, I had 3 QSOs on 2m SSB, and decided that would do. Flicking back to FM and a few more S2Ss, this time with a few folks down in SS land. My amp, Tokyo Hy-Power 25W (or 35W?), helped to get my signal back into Aberdeen for a couple of locals.

I’d tested the amp at home when I first bought it. I’d stuck it on FM and then measured the power and all was good. When I tried SSB, I noticed the SWR was really high and that surprised me, but I didn’t really know what the issue was. I checked the connectors and they were fine, I did wonder if I wasn’t understanding the 705 properly as it’s been a while since I used it (although it’s so nice to use compared to the ft-857’s menu!). I did make a few contacts so it was working. When I switched to FM, and set the amp to FM, I then heard the relays clicking and the SWR was just fine on the radio. So I don’t think it was working properly on SSB, and I was probably only putting out 1W via the RX route on the amp! Would’ve been better just bare 705 with external battery for 10W! I’ve not tested the amp back home yet to see if the issue is still there. I partially think that the rf sensing isn’t quite working, or the 705 reacts to the high SWR of the RX circuit and cuts the power to 1W faster than the amp can trigger.

I know with my SG-3000 remote ATU, the 705 can’t trigger it as the SWR protection limits the 705 to 1W and that’s not enough for the ATU, vs. using my ftdx10 which will still put out 10W on high SWR that then triggers the ATU to tune. Be interesting to test if setting it on FM mode works better than SSB mode, or maybe I need to venture into some mod to add PTT trigger…I did a quick internet search but the solution wasn’t obvious.

I also brought the remote ATU for the 705 (not the icom one) that came with the radio when I bought it used. This tunes up a long wire. I set this up with my usual 41’ wire and it tuned up on 40m just fine. It was getting on for 12:30 and we were meeting at 1pm, but as it was such a nice day, I thought I’d try 20m as well. The ATU didn’t like my length of wire for 20m and it wouldn’t tune. I have the wrong counterpoise length since my last one broke and I just used a random bit I had lying around with a connector on it. I can get away with it on the KX2, SWR of about 2.8:1, but this tuner wasn’t having any of it. I’d already spotted (this was also a three park POTA and so PoLo had spotted me on POTA as well as SOTA), and I heard several stations give me a call, and then some Spanish ops talking to each other about how they’d not heard me - or something like that, they were talking in Spanish!

Probably it was for the best, as I needed to pack up and meet everyone, as I also had to do school pick up today. The whole time, I didn’t need a jacket, it was so warm in the sun and my jog down the hill resulted in a very hot arrival at the Bothy for lunch. Paul was with his dogs, so they were sat outside, and I joined them in my T-shirt!

We had a good chat, and everyone slowly joined us from their summits. Met a couple of new faces, which is always nice. Tim and I had made some stash for the event. I had some badges made, and Tim had printed some limited edition coasters!

I had to shoot off to do the school pick up, but the others continued on for a while longer. Several folks were staying locally for the weekend to do some other hills. The weather was very nice the rest of the weekend, but Friday was the peak. Seems we did well again, given last year’s one also had ridiculously good weather.

Also on the reflector.

It arrived very quickly and now it sits on my window ledge next to the computer.

Then the next day a rigid envelope arrives and it was full of certificates from G-QRP! As I said, I’m not really chasing awards but I try to submit my logs when they do events, one of which was the summer sizzler, and the other a 2025 award - the Chelmsley Trophy.

The summer sizzler happened to be over the week when I did 8 big GM/ES summits, including the trip of Cairn Toul and Braeriach (the second and third highest summits in GM/ES and the third and fourth highest mountains in the UK). I did them back to back with another long trip out to Bynack More from Braemar. A total of 85 km across two days! Probably why I won the iron knee award!

It’s quite simple but has a couple of extra steps. This is for linux but it’s python based so will work on any OS.

There are a few results online but I went with this one: iR-APRSISD. It has a readme with instructions which you should have a look at too.

git clone https://github.com/kemenril/iR-APRSISD.git
cd iR-APRSISD

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install aprslib

[inReach]
User        = Your inReach feed user
#If this is defined, we will authenticate to the inReach service.
# If it is not, we will assume public access is ok.
Password    = Your inReach feed password, if required

# This should be the location of your KML feed.
URL     = https://share.garmin.com/Feed/Share/%(User)s

[APRS]
#This SSID is used for logging into APRS-IS, and also as a base ID for
# generating callsigns for devices.  The first device found will be this
# SSID, the next will be this ID + 1, and so on.  If you define a [Devices]
# section, it is _only_ used for the login, and the device mapping must be
# given in full in the [Devices] section.
SSID        = GM5ALX-3
# If you don't have a password, you can use the --genpass command-line
# option to calculate it.
Password    = 1234
Port        = 14580

#If the separator is /, your icon will come from the primary symbol table.
# if it is \, it will draw from the secondary table.
Separator   = /
#This character represents an APRS icon from the table tied to Separator.
Symbol      = (

#This information is included at the end of each packet, along with some
# other data.
Comment     = APRS-IS KML forwarder, by K0SIN

#Define this section if you'd like to enforce an SSID to IMEI mapping.
# It must contain all devices you want to publish.  Anything without a
# mapping defined will be ignored if this section exists.
#[Devices]
#N0CALL-12  = 987654321987654
#N0CALL-15  = 987654321987656
#N0CALL-8   = 092847784398753

[General]

# Frequency in seconds with which to log packet forwarding stats to STDOUT
# If this is less than Period, stats will only be logged every Period seconds.
# Comment it out to skip printing packet stats entirely.
Logstats        = 300

# KML polling interval in seconds.
Period          = 300

[Unit]
Description=ir-aprsisd Service
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=alex
Group=alex
WorkingDirectory=/home/alex/dev/iR-APRSISD
ExecStart=/home/alex/dev/iR-APRSISD/.venv/bin/python /home/alex/dev/iR-APRSISD/ir-aprsisd
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

Environment="PATH=/home/alex/dev/iR-APRSISD/.venv/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable ir-aprsisd.service
sudo systemctl start ir-aprsisd.service

Preamble 🥱

Several ambles have been made this year which took me to within 12 points. With the poor weather, my original thought of making MG by the first GM/ES winter outing was scrapped, like the event. Believe it or not, Fraser (MM0EFI), and I didn’t co-ordinate that much on points, we were both doing whatever summits - as our coffee mornings schedules allowed.

Last weekend was spent looking at endless hill combinations, trying to decide what, and where and if Fraser was coming or not (and if he was < or > than 2000). At the time, the avalance warnings were concerning, and at some stage Fraser suggested Glas Tulaichean (GM/CS-011). The only problem was, it’s 11 and I needed 12. As I lay in bed on Saturday night with the sotlas map burned into my retinas, a sudden eureka moment hits me…GARVOCK! 🐮 Sunday was going to be busy with a 13th birthday party, and swimming competition but I knew the AZ is only ~350m from the viewpoint car park, and that 1 point would make all the difference.

School run at 9am and then I was off to Braemar. It was rain until it turned to snow at Ballater, although had stopped by the time I parked up opposite Victoria Bridge. My later start meant the others were on or nearly on their summits and I chased Fraser whilst walking up to Mar Lodge estate.

Sheltered by the hill and trees, it was a pleasant walk up the Land Rover track, some new snow on the ground but straightforward. Once off this and heading up the hill to the summit was harder work. Could’ve done with some snow shoes as the snow wasn’t frozen enough to walk on with spikes.

I heard Andy, GM6PJZ, calling, so replied with the ES club call, although the rf path wasn’t ideal with me walking further around the hill but we eventually made contact.

Once out of the shelter of the hill the wind was strong and the snow was on and off. Visibility was poor. By this time Fraser had been on his summit an hour, so once I was in the AZ I called him on 2m for our S2S. Andy was still calling, so he was another S2S.

I seem to remember the summit having a few cairns and I thought one at the true summit. I past one and continued on but didn’t find another. I thought about turning back but then found a big boulder with snow drifts around it. Looked ideal to setup.

Peter, GM7STP, came back on 2m from Craigendarroch, and he was my fourth call in the log. I debated about leaving or setting up HF, and decided to give 40m a shot. Mast jammed in the snow and me tucked behind the boulder, it wasn’t so bad. After a few QSOs I started getting rf on my mic, so that made it a struggle for others to hear me. I’ve had it before and usually rearranging myself, the mic cable or antenna wire sorts it out, but I was jammed in my nook so couldn’t move. A few more contacts and it was definitely time to go. My fingers were frozen! 🥶

Was packing up to head down, when Yaesu service called me to ask for my ft857 serial number. I’d ordered two replacement encoders after a failed sale shipment had damaged them. With a wet phone and poor reception the call didn’t go well, and I called back once in the car.

Then all that was left was a short drive back into Braemar for handshakes, “well dones”, tea, soup, bacon toastie and sharing of stories.

Not bad for a cancelled event! We’ll try again on the 6th March!

Also on the reflector.

Preprandial 🍸

Last week was possibly a record breaking amount of snow in NE Scotland, so much so that schools were shut all week - even the city ones - and terms such as snow-vid were floating around as everyone was literally stuck at home. As is the case with the UK, where snow is irregular and infrequent, the majority of the population and government don’t really prepare and so chaos ensues. Others, who are better equipped, head out and help those in need. Photos from the Aberdeenshire chat that week:

If you could get to a hill, then it could’ve been a great day out…at least on the sunny day.

Quite a while ago I bought this 2m amp to use with my ICOM IC-705. It’s a 110W amp that can be driven by either 10W or 2W, and lots of details and references can be found on RigPix database. I thought that I could use it at home as my 2m base station, or even take it with me to do some SSB with a bit more than the 10W of the 705 (with external battery). The portable part was quickly dismissed when I realised how heavy it actually is - circa 2.5 kg. However, I had ideas of having the 705 in the office, and then a 2m and a HF amp in the garage and I could do everything from the 705. In the end I just put the ftdx10 in the office and realised it wasn’t that big and did everything I need without having to buy a HF amp and figure out how to manage that semi-remotely. Anyway, the first time I came to use the amp the power level switch broke when I moved it. The rod seemed to come loose internal to the switch and did nothing. Having not tested it yet I didn’t want to try until I replaced it in case the switch had failed in a strange way. I opened it up to have a look inside and thought I should replace the switch. This was all quite a while ago and for various reasons (laziness) I did nothing about it. After a shack tidy and sort out recently, I decided I would finally fix it and looked to order a replacement switch online.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any DPDT switches of the 6A rating with a long lever - cue someone immediately emailing me with a link to 1,000s for 20p each - and so ended up with just a regular length one. Amp repairs is maybe slightly aspirational for what is really just unsoldering and resoldering a switch. It was a bit fiddly to get in and out as I didn’t want to dismantle the amp more than necessary.

Unsoldering did seem to release 1970s smells but nothing was amiss, I did catch the side of the resistors with the soldering iron but no harm done. I could’ve done with a tiny spanner to loosen the nuts on either side of the panel but managed with a pair of pliers.

There’s also a circle of black felt that goes between the front panel and the supporting panel, which blacks out the holes at the front, so it looks good. A nice touch, but also fiddly to get back into place. I soldered some wire across the top two pins first and then mounted it back into the case. I used some tweezers to hold the wires and resistors in place whilst I soldered them back to the switch.

I used a multimeter to check continuity just to make sure I hadn’t soldered extra parts together as it was a little tricky to see, and all seemed good, so time to power it on!

This would be the first time actually testing it, and I fitted some Power Pole adapters to it as well. First I was going to try with 10W and see what I got out, and it was just over 110W. The power meter on the amp and my Avair one matched up well too.

Next was to try with 2W. There’s a little switch on the back of the amp that you have to set. It also has a screwed on plate, so if you only wanted to use it with 2W or 10W you can screw that on and stop the switch from being changed.

Unfortunately, the ft-857 only goes down to 5W, and so I was probably slightly over driving it. However, 2W would be ideal for the 705 or even a HT. At 2W the amp uses two stages of amplification but still yields 110W, or in my case with 5W driver, 130W out.

So a success! Which is good, as the ebay auction was a long time ago now 😅. The question is, what do I do with it now? I’ve sold my 705 as I never used it and bought the ft857 for higher power 2m SSB and HF for SOTA. The 857 “only” does 50W of VHF, but that’s plenty on a summit with a yagi, I just wanted a little more than 10W, and probably 20-30W is sufficient. At home I have a FM only rig for 2m for the occasional SOTA chase or brief chat with the locals, and that does 50W. I have dreams of doing something fancy like 2m EME, but then I’d probably want 300+W. I’m thinking it doesn’t really have a use, and so should I sell it. At least the buyer can see it works. These Tokyo amps are lovely quality, but is it just going to sit in a cupboard for ever more?

It was fun to fix it, even if the fix was tiny.

It’s not a very polished app, and I used Ian’s code, but it allows you to pick a country and then it’ll plot a map of those unactivated parks.

End of story. Right? Well not quite…

I showed this map to a German ham friend, and he found a park nearby which was supposedly unactivated but when he looked at it, it showed one person had activated it on the leaderboard, even though the stats reported zero.

This got me wondering, what other parks are like this, where the stats from the API report zero activations and QSOs but there are activations appearing on the leaderboard…time for some more API queries! Each park has a leaderboard API endpoint which shows the activations and hunters, and so by checking each park that was originally reported to have zero activations against this other endpoint, I could make a list of parks which have incorrect stats.

This did take a while as some countries have a lot unactivated parks and each one has to be checked. I left it running overnight and in the morning I had a list of 99 parks across the world.

I emailed the POTA helpdesk and submitted a ticket, and so maybe they can fix them. In the meantime, if you’re looking for unactivated summits, be sure to check the POTA site and the leaderboard as well as the stats, or you can use this table here, which is correct at the time of publishing. Feel free to use the streamlit app too. The code can be found here, including the script to find erroneous parks.

Not quite a year since I last went up it, but back again on the same route. The weather wasn’t quite as nice as last time either, with low cloud and a cold wind. This time I knew about the false summits and it didn’t seem nearly as bad as before. Also I’ve climbed a lot of hills since, so probably got better legs than I did the first time!

This time I spotted the little cubby with some provisions and bits in, that’s inside the cairn shelter. I should make up some SOTA stickers and leave them in there next time!

I left a little note in the guest book and then setup. I did a little 2m at first, but my hands quickly got cold, and then setup on HF. Have a good run on 40m and then 20m, with several S2Ss. I was having fun but it wasn’t the warmest and I also had to be back for school pick up, so packed up and headed down.

My view of Morven has changed from my least favourite 4-pointer to, somewhere in the pack. Once I do all the 4-pointers I should make a list of them.

I saw some runners come by, just in shorts and t-shirt…hope they don’t trip and fall… and have a chat with an older guy making his way up. It was nice to get back below the cloud and see further than 20m in front.

I look forward to coming back next year.

My sister commented that everyone has a certain way of talking on the radio but everyone is very nice, like actively nice! We’re on the radio, so obviously we’re all happy!

This was another early morning summit before work. A little one pointer that has a reputation of being a painful hill to climb given the terrain. It rarely activated, probably for that reason, and is on my list of GM/ES summits to activate. Fraser had just been up it the week before, after being the last person to activate it back in 2022! He said he found a better route up, and shared the path with me.

I followed his gps tracks and the route was generally fine. There’s rarely a path and it’s a bit more of an adventure through trees and heather. I thought it was quite fun. Sometimes following a path can be a little boring. I was soon at the top and got setup on HF. Fraser wanted to chase on 2m, for his complete, but was finding a better location.

The HF bands were absolutely terrible. A big storm, G4 (out of 5) had occurred the night before and conditions were rough. I called on HF for about 15 minutes getting nothing until Fraser said he was ready on 2m. He gave me three callsigns, just in case things were that bad. I returned to HF and was determined to get the required four contacts but with different people. On 40m a couple of European stations came back, with reasonable signal reports. I tried chasing another SOTA activator in Germany. We almost made a contact on 40m but it was just too difficult with heavy fading. I heard him call me but only part of my callsign and then nothing. I tried him again on 20m but it was no use. Eventually I got another on 40m after trying all the bands and with 7 QSOs with 5 people I decided that was enough and I had to get off to work anyway.

HF was okay on 40m, and 15m got Ukraine straight way. The most excitement was from 2m, just using my RH-770 and getting a S2S with Alan, MM0VPM, on Arran and then a QSO with MM6OEC in the Outer Hebrides 200km away. Then it was off to our second munro.

We were back at the holiday house by 2:30pm and then off to Boat of Garten bike pump track with the kids…who had all been winding up the mums during the day. So probably good we didn’t do the all day route!

I have to say Mullach Clach a’ Bhlàir is the most boring munro I’ve been to so far, but I can tick it off and never visit again! It is a HEMA summit and I did think of trying to activate it, but I wasn’t that interested and didn’t really have time.

I cycled along the cycle path the way there, which was nice but it seemed to take a longer route than the road and have some more ups and downs. I’m glad I checked the map a few times as if I’d kept following it, I would’ve ended up on a huge detour. After about 30 minutes, I found the start of the walk and locked up my bike.

![Up to the summit]](meall-a-bh-7.jpg)

The path is very clear the whole way up, and easy to follow. There was a bit of a cool breeze but if that wasn’t blowing then it was a very warm climb. It was also pretty busy with lots of people coming down as I was going up. The summit has a big cairn at the top, but it was very busy so after a quick selfie I looked for somewhere else to setup, and ended up walking down the south side to a big rock to sit on.

I tried 2m first, as Fraser was sure he could work me on 2m from his house. I had a few other calls on 2m, including George, MM0SAX/M in his van driving down the A9 and ended up talking to him for a while. This was whilst Fraser was walking around his village with a yagi and HT trying to work me! Eventually I let George go and got the call with Fraser. I was in two minds about HF, one it was a glorious day and I was just sat in a tshirt on the hill side having fun, but also the fact that I would be much longer than I originally told everyone. So HF it was 😅. I tried out my new guys for the carbon 6 mast. They were fine, although there was hardly any wind, so not much of a test. I perhaps cut them a little short as they were quite a steep angle from the mast. HF was pretty good on 15m, into Greece and the Canaries, so that was nice.

I packed up and hten headed down the ridge on a straight path back down. This only took me 15-20 minutes to get back to my bike. I’d drunk all my water, so I stopped at the visitor centre for a coke and asked them to refill my water bottle. I then had a 45 minutes cycle back to our house. I stuck to the road, and it was mostly downhill, apart from the roundabout and bridge over the railway line going around Aviemore. Back to the house and found everyone had been paddleboarding and had lots of fun, so no worries there!

I was pleased that I’d done this hill, and meant I achieved my objective of activiating the GM/ES hills this side of the Cairngorms.

For the Easter holidays, we’d planned a trip to Aviemore with some friends. The weather continued to be absolutely lovely, with clear blue skies and warm temperatures everyday, it was like a summer holiday! My objective was to activate the three GM/ES SOTA summits that are this side of the Cairngorms during our trip. We’d planned a day’s hiking, so GM/ES-009, Skor Goaith, was going to be fine, but I needed to find slots for this hill, Ord Ban, and the Corbett, Meall a’Bhuachaille. There’s a nice loch next to Ord Ban which is ideal for cycling around, and this was one of the planned activities - even without my suggestion! My hope was to then find some time to quickly run up this hill. It’s a small one, and you can climb it in about 15-20 minutes, and so after our cycle round, everyone was playing in the Loch and it was time for me to go up.

Once I found the start of the path, it was straight forward. It’s a nice wee hill with plenty of space on the summit and trees and a trig point to keep you entertained. There were some other people climbing it, so I found a space off to one side and setup there. The bands weren’t great, and it felt like the only stations I could hear were other summits. I didn’t want to hang around too long, and so didn’t try longer than my 6 contacts before packing up and heading back down.

One done, two to go! Probably this was the important one to get done as I didn’t want to drive all the way from Aberdeen for a one-pointer (and have to pay parking!)

Once we were done, we headed down the ridge and back to our bikes. The cycle ride was mostly downhill and an easy end to the long day. Back home by 18:30, meant I was out of the house for 14 1/2 hours! What a great day!

And now the long walk to the final summit, An Socach.