Walking, Hills & Radio

I took a day off work today to do a wee bit of walking, and go up a couple of (small) hills to play with radios.

I activated two hills for "Summits On The Air" (SOTA) - West Lomond and East Lomond.  It was a foggy start to the day, but beautifully sunny later - a lovely day to be out and about. 

I should have done something more ambitious but I keep believing walking guides when I shouldn't.  Walkhighlands is fab for routes and general advice, but advises 2.5-3.5 hours for West Lomond and it was 1:40 for me (hence I fit in a second summit).  I was looking at Ben Cleuch but put off by the 4.5-6 hour walk - but looking at my average walking speed I do about 4-5km/hour up hill (apart from really steep sections) and more like 5-6 km/hour down hill, so I need to learn to look at distance and elevation, not the times that Walkhighlands gives when planning in future...

I made 22 contacts on the first hill and 13 on the second.  These included a few "Summit to Summit" contacts with other SOTA operators on hills including one of the Cairgorms, one in the Lakes, and another in Northumbria.  I also made international contacts in Spain, Germany, France and Finland!  

Kit: IC705, LiFePo4, SOTABEAMS BandHopper 2, SOTABEAMS tactical mini + guying kit, N9Tax 2/70 Slim Jim, Homebrew 2m dipole.  Plus sandwiches, sun hat and lots of water of course!