No-one does the middle hill

I’m slowly working my way around the Cairngorms National Park summits and have been looking at the Glen Tilt summits - namely Carn a’Chlamain, GM/CS-031, Beinn Dearg, GM/CS-023, Beinn Mheadhonach, GM/CS-051, and by extension, the remote Beinn Bhreac, GM/CS-045. None of these get visited for SOTA very often - probably as they all involve a long day out of bike and hike and there are plenty of other hills to be doing. In fact, two of them, the Corbetts, haven’t been visited since Fraser did his bi...

What a load of Cobblers, GM/SS-020

Ah The Cobbler GM/SS-020 is a very striking 884m summit at Arrochar to the West of Glasgow. There’s a bunch of shapely mountains here known as the Arrochar Alps as they are quite spiky unlike many Scottish mountains. I did a neighbour, Beinn Ime GM/SS-006, in similar sunny WX just over a year ago. I discovered then, I can do probably just one of the three summits here (Cobbler, Ime and Beinn Narnain GM/SS-016) per trip, I’m just not fit enough to do more and activate and enjoy the effort. The W...

What are YOU doing here?!

Wasn’t the weather absolutely glorious last weekend? After supporting the Yorkshire Three Peaks Fell Race with RAYNET on Saturday 25th April, I camped overnight in Horton-in-Ribblesdale with the rest of the team. By 5:30pm, having earned myself the free meal (vegetable chilli), I decided that sitting still wasn’t really an option… so off I went for a “quick” 11-mile round trip up Fountains Fell, G/NP-017, and back. Just under 3.5 hours later, I rolled back into camp at around 10pm feeling very ...

GM/SS-090: That'll Dubh Nicely

The day’s weather forecast had looked pretty good, so I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to jouk out after work and get a local hill in the bag. I had visions of watching the clock tick past 16:59:59, making like Bart Simpson on his skateboard home, and then an effortless glide along the road to Luss in order to get up Beinn Dubh. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go to plan, with a less than smooth exit from work, improvised car repairs, and a forgotten pair of trail running shoes all c...

The day Denmark was closer than Dundee

It’s been a while since Fraser, @MM0EFI and I have a day out, and looking at options for this week, we settled on Mount Keen, GM/ES-014, and Friday’s weather looked best. The route from Glen Tanar is my favourite, which is about 10km of cycling and then climb to the top. For the past two months Fraser’s bike has been in my garage after Tim borrowed it, so I’d bring both bikes and meet at the car park. The first corner…oops. Bike was unharmed and we set off from the Glen Tanar car park. ...

G/SB-007 Tosson Hill for MG

Thanks for all the messages and congrats for my mountain goat activation on Tosson Hill G/SB-007, last friday. I had a fabulous day. Weather was perfect, no wind, blue sky and temperature was mild. 54 contacts in total across 2mFM, 40m, 20m, and 15m ssb. Thanks for everyone who called in. Was nice to get some S2S in the log too. from the activation. A few pics Achieving MGx1 has been a great journey and I’d like to thank everyone who gave advice and support over the last three ...

The one pointers of the Dysynni Valley

Introduction With it being Marconi Day, the Telford and District Amateur Radio Society set up for the weekend at the Marconi Bungalows in Tywyn operating as GB8MD, I planned to take part on the Saturday and help set down on the Sunday, bagging a few remaining summits in the Dysynni Valley enroute to the SES site. My aim was to do a quick campout in my microcamper van, and ensuring I have everything to survive for Scotland and see what I need to get for next week, and to also bag some more Wels...

Sweet Sugarloaf SOTA Two-timer.

Revisiting the nation’s sweetheart 2 years after a failed SOTA. The darling of Ireland. Le grande dame. The Great Sugar Loaf. EI/IE-022. April 26th 2026. The Great Sugar Loaf (EI/IE-022) is one of those summits that the merest mention of it in conversation with anybody in Ireland will draw instant recognition. “Yep. I know it.” and “Ah yeah, climbed that loads. Great spot.” or responses to that effect are what you’d usually receive. She’s one of the summits that I’d wager the majority of th...

Nine Standards Rig and 2m SSB

….Well another walk today, but my brother - the black one feigned a limp so I had to accompany the man up the hill. He had his large backpack today and he took an age at the summit. He took everything out the bag and then began to assemble something like a rubics cube which he attached to the pole thing. I tried barking at it but it didn’t seem to help much. The people my man was talking to complimented me on my barking, apparently the barking modulation was much better than the mans voice. ...

Steel Horsin’ Up Mount Utsayantha: The Trailways’ First Motorcycle SOTA – KM1NDY