On Sunday 27 March Summits On The Air (SOTA) enthusiasts organised an informal "UHF fun day" with the aim of getting activators on summits with 70cm and up stations. LRS members Andy MM0FMF (the GM Region Manager for SOTA), and John GM8OTI were up the summits Hart Fell (SOTA reference GM/SS-037), north of Moffat, and Cairnharrow (GM/SS-191), east of Newton Stewart, respectively.

A determined-looking Andy MM0FMF on Hart Fell.
(Or was he just freezing cold)?

Andy MM0FMF was pretty successful including four summit-to-summit contacts on 70cm with the FT-817 and a new home brew beam: GM8OTI/P on Cairnharrow (51 miles), 2M0IOB/P on Ben Donich (79 miles), MM0TAI/P Ben Chonzie (76 miles) and GM4COX/P on Beinn Luibhean. He was also active on HF & 2m.

John GM8OTI's station for 2m, 70cm & 23cm on Cairnharrow.

John GM8OTI had much less success - he had hoped for UHF contacts down into the Lancashire area across the Irish sea, but managed only Andy MM0FMF/P on Hart Fell and GW3GUX/P (not on a summit) on Anglesey, a sea path of 109 miles, not line of sight. Both were on on 70cm. Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), the highest mountain in Wales is just line of sight from Cairnharrow! John was disappointed with no 23cm contacts on the day, and the apparent low level of activity - unusual for SOTA. The Tuesday evening UKAC events are buzzing, in comparison!

Tnx to John GM8OTI for this report.