We’ve had a spell of outstanding weather here for over a week, seemed like a great opportunity to dig out my radio and walking gear to activate my first summit of 2025. Club members Douglas MM7DCD and Kris MM7OAI were equally keen, we decided to climb Beinn a’Mhanaich which sits just next to Beinn Chaorach that we completed in May 2024.
As forecasted the weather was sunny, mostly cloud free and cool. The temperature when we set off was 6°C but that dropped as we gained some height so our layers were on and off.
If you didn’t know, this whole area is controlled by the military and the walk to the summit is an active firing range. It’ll be well marked if there is activity ongoing, but something to keep in mind. I tracked the watch on my Garmin and uploaded to Strava here.
Douglas dropped his beanie on the way up so benefitted from a few extra steps going back down to get it!
We reached the top in just under 90 minutes of walking time, a pretty good walk for a four point summit and one that I’d recommend for those starting out hiking. Some parts of the walk are steep, but it’s not technical and enjoyable with some great views as you climb. At the top you get a good look at Loch Lomond, Clyde through Greenock, Gourock, Dunoon and Kilcreggan.
We didn’t hang about and got our stations set up. Douglas worked 2M VHF with a 5 Element Yagi, Kris and I worked HF with SOTABeams Linked Dipoles on the 20M and 40M bands.
I was surprised at how quiet the 40M band was, as I had my Icom IC-705 with the keyer I transmitted some test messages on CW to test propagation via the Reverse Beacon Network. I wasn’t surprised to see only two stations heard me, I done the same on the 20M band and received a much better response.
I started calling on 40M at 12:30 local time and one hour later at 13:30 made my final contact, I managed 11 stations on 40M. I then switched to the 20M band and really struggled to find a clear spot on the frequency due to a contest, I only managed two contacts on 20M and had to QSY inbetween because another station participating on the contest took over the frequency. It’s likely they didn’t hear me with my 10W output.
I managed another 4 contacts on VHF using Douglas’s setup finishing the day with 17 contacts in total with 5 of those being summit-to-summit with other SOTA operators.
Overall a great day out. Perfect weather, a pleasant walk and great company.
If you are reading this and are local to the area, or visiting - feel free to get in touch if you’d like to join us for a SOTA activation. If you’d like to observe or simply participate, the company is always welcome!