There were more local activations for me on Tuesday 19th March 2013. And both joint activations as well. It's been a long time since I've had a couple of joints in the same day.  The first was unintentional. I drove up to the parking spot for Gun G/SP-013 and saw the familiar sight of Mickey 2E0YYY's car. The rucksack was light as a feather today, with just the HB1B and 20m groundplane - no SLAB or FT-817. I couldn't resist inviting Mickey to pick it up to feel the weight of it after I reached the summit and saw how much he had carried up with him.

As I had only carried 20m up with me, I checked with Mike as to his plans. "I'm waiting for a summit-to-summit on 40, then I'm just going to do 20" he advised. So out of fairness to Mike - he was there first and I hadn't checked the alerts closely enough - I walked about halfway back down the path to the road. The activation zone is large on this hill, and I would have been at about 370m ASL, 15m lower than the summit and comfortably within the AZ. More importantly, I also had good shelter from the cold wind at this point.  The activation was very enjoyable with 62 QSOs made, all 20m CW, in 70 minutes of operating. The highlights were the contact with W4ZV, and S2S with Klaus DF2GN/P on Tonau DM/BW-376, and Pete G4ISJ/P on Cleeve Hill G/CE-001.

Mickey walked down for a natter on his way back to the parking spot. He wondered if the parking area itself was in the AZ, but I told him that I knew it was not - the crucial 360m contour (25m lower than the 385m summit) is met after around 100m walking from the road.  Mike and myself walked the rest of the way to the cars together, and arranged to stop off for a pint in Rushton Spencer. The Royal Oak was open at the bottom of the hill, and we had a pleasant half hour talking about canal barges and sipping EPA.

On the driving route back to Macclesfield, I found myself in conversation with Russ M6RGF/M who was dropping some gear off at an amateur friend's QTH in Macclesfield. It did not take long to talk Russ into his debut SOTA activation - which would be on The Cloud G/SP-015 (of course).

Tuesday afternoon, 16th April 2013, on Gun G/SP-013. I had a morning appointment with the neurosurgeon in Newcastle-under-Lyme, then a bit of a gap before an afternoon appointment with occupational health in Fenton.  It certainly looked like a nice day, but that wasn't taking account of the incessant wind and gusts blighting the country. I decided therefore to go very easy and lightweight, with just HB1B and 40m dipole. That would be plain sailing, wouldn't it?

No, not if you do something idiotic. Like try to set your aerial up far too close to a hawthorn tree. Dipole legs were pegged out, and I was lifting the mast, carefully in the wind. And then, suddenly, I had wire, feeder and guy rope in an almighty tangle in the hawthorn tree out of reach above my head.  It probably took me the best part of 25 minutes to solve this "Chinese puzzle", which had to be done painstakingly slowly with step-by-step logic. Grrr. And once I was set up properly, I only ever seemed to get 5 ot 6 QSOs or about 5 minutes operating each time before my pole collapsed in the face of the wind bashing it around. On the most sheltered part of the hill at that.

On one of the collapses, I found myself continuing to work stations with good 2-way reports while my dipole legs were running along the ground. Before I noticed! On mast collapse number five, and with 20 QSOs in the logbook, I decided enough was enough, and went to tell the occupational health physician that I was going to have brain surgery.

Big surprise on Sunday 2nd June 2013. "Looks a nice day, shall we go out and do Gun and Cloud?" I suggested. I was amazed when both Jimmy and Liam were up for it. Perhaps the Nintendo 3DS pedometer thing, plus a fresh bellyful of cheeseburger and chips swung it for Liam. Jimmy could well have been motivated by the shocking truth that he hadn't yet visited, let alone collected an activator point from G/SP-013 or G/SP-015 in 2013.  The path up to Gun summit was bone dry, so a footwear change was not necessary. Jimmy set up the SOTAbeams MFD on the top of a guyed SOTA Pole, his current favoured operating arrangement. A little down the slope, I set up the 12m groundplane antenna for another stab at the 12m Challenge.

Jimmy did much better than me on Gun. He racked up 32 QSOs on 2m FM with little effort. When my very first unspotted CQ on 24.897MHz CW resulted in a genuine 2-way 599 contact with PP2FN (Brazil) I thought that this was going to be a stunner - except things got tough then - two contacts in the next hour kind of tough!  I did spend some time getting PSK31 running on 12m, but no-one answered the first three or four CQs in that mode. And that was all, because then my phone was out of charge. Yes, a bit rubbish that, forgetting to charge one's phone before an activation alerted for datamodes!

A desparately slow QSO rate continued as I flitted between CW and SSB, and between running and search-and-pouncing. The highlights were all on CW - with PP (Brazil), 9H (Malta), 4Z (Israel) and FG (Guadelope) being worked. I also heard good signals from Uruguay (CX2DK & CX2CC on CW) and South Africa (ZS5J and others on SSB) but couldn't get them to hear me. My total was 14 QSOs, and it was time to head over to The Cloud G/SP-015.

Beautiful morning on Saturday 8th June 2013, and off to Gun G/SP-013 as planned. The idea was basically to check the SWR on the newly rebuilt 12m antenna and sneak a cheeky activation in while doing so. Morning conditions have not been favourable for 12m so I wasn't expecting much.  I set up just off the summit of Gun and tapped the Mini Palm Paddle with the 817's meter set to SWR. Totally flat - brilliant. And now that the antenna had been strengthened, it wasn't falling to pieces every five minutes either. And it now had more suitable RG58 coax feeder.

So that was all good, but what about making a few contacts? Well that was all good as well. I made 34 QSOs on 12m, 8 on SSB, 21 on CW and 5 on PSK31. Highlights included Malawi (7Q) on 12m CW, S2S with OE5EEP/P on OE/OO-242 and OE5REO/P on OE/OO-383 on 12m SSB and 12m CW respectively, and Darius M0KCB/P on Great Shunner Fell G/NP-006 on 12m PSK31 and later on 12m SSB.  After packing away, I made five further QSOs on the 2m FM handie. These included S2S with Karen 2E0XYL/P and Neil 2W0TDX/P on Tryfan GW/NW-006, Eleri MW3NYR/P on Plynlimon GW/MW-001 and Bob G6ODU/P on Billinge Hill G/SP-017. A QSO total for the activation of 39.

As I descended I mete Richard G3CWI and mate Martin with their bikes down near the gate. I boasted to Richard about my aerial working so well and havine probably already consumed all the available 12m chasers. I did not however expect him to take me seriously and give up without a fight. Having said that, I think the true story behind Richard's priorities can be determined on his Facebook photos of the day.  Despite the chilly wind at the summit that caused me to fully layer up, but the time I got back to the car it was a scorcher of a day. I 'phoned Maz to suggest that we met for lunch at the Knot Inn in Rushton Spencer, which we did and enjoyed a nice steak and pint. Jimmy and Liam came down with Marianne too, and after lunch we all embarked down the Staffordshire Way, the old railway line down to Rudyard Lake.

This was quite a long (but easy) walk, and when Jimmy disappeared way into the distance, and a steam train was waiting at Huntsman's Lodge, the three of us jumped on and took the ride down to the dam at the south end of the lake, and close to Rudyard village. The train never caught up with Jimmy, but it at least got us closer! We enjoyed an ice cream in the baking sunshine by the lake, then set off on the return walk. Again, we used the steam railway to cover a section of this for us, but it was still quite a long plod nonetheless.

So now I was tired but satisfied. But the final of Britain's Got Talent was going to be dominating the lounge all evening (all I wanted to do was watch Jack Carroll's turn, which I intended to do on catch-up the following day), so it was off out on another activation. I saw that The Cloud G/SP-015 had been so far neglected all day, compounded by Richard's cancellation, so I went to continue the 24MHz experiment there.

From Shining Tor G/SP-004 on Saturday 15th June 2013, I would have probably gone back towards Macclesfield, down the fork to the Stanley Arms, then across through Macclesfield Forest and Wildboarclough to Wincle. The SatNav took us past the Cat & Fiddle, then sharp right onto A54, then left between Wildboarclough and Wincle to rejoin the route I would have used.  Soon we were pulling in at the rough area opposite the access point for Gun. It was busy today with plenty of cars and space at a premium. We pretty much got the last two spots.

Although there had been heavy rain during the morning and recent days, the path up to Gun was still dry, so the three of us could remain in our light walking trainers. I described the more normal wet and dirty underfoot conditions on this route to Stephan and Martin. At the summit, I turned right to find a sheltered spot behind a tree. This was near to a gentleman having his lunch in the middle of a walking day, and we had quite a chat. He asked me all the typical questions about who I expected to pick me up and such, and then reported how he had found the conversation had added some real interest to his day!

       

I kicked off on 12m CW again on Gun, and worked John M6BLV and Mark G0VOF. It didn't look like there was any DX potential at all now. Steve G6LUZ was added on 12m PSK31 before I packed away. Up near the trig point, I added Steve 2W0JYN and Jimmy M0HGY to the log on 2m FM with the handheld. Martin DF3MC had secured another comfortable qualification on CW, but Stephan was struggling again on SSB. This was when I offered the VX7R to Stephan and found out that he would fail to qualify before considering operating on VHF! And indeed, he missed out on the point from G/SP-013 with just one QSO in the log, although that is sufficient for him to claim the new unique activation.

Martin tried to tail-end my QSO with Jimmy M0HGY to also add the G AM to his logbook. However, Jimmy wasn't hearing Martin's replies. Taking a look at Martin's own VX7R revealed that he had CTCSS tones enabled and also a repeater shift. Having got to grips myself with this rig's unintuitive menu system this year, I was able to turn these features off so that the VX7R was now working normally as a simplex radio on 2m. In the meantime, Martin used my VX7R to make the QSO with Jimmy.  We made the short walk to the car, and I suggested to Stephan and Martin that they just follow me to The Cloud G/SP-015, even if their SatNav did not agree with my route.

Saturday 3rd August 2013.  Woke up early.  Didn't have a headache.  Found out that employer has started docking my pay even though they aren't supposed to do this for an industrial injury.  Headache came on pretty quickly!  I should be returning to work in September, so hoping this new wave of headaches do not persist.

Went for a walk up Gun.  Set up 12m antenna and kicked off on FT-817 on PSK31.  Made two contacts.  Realised that SLAB was nearly flat, so turned down power to 1 watt.  Went to CW and made one QSO.  Went to SSB and made four.  Returned to CW and started answering the CQ calls of others, resulting in nice contacts into Israel and San Marino.  And Staffordshire.

Packed away FT-817 and MM12 and called on VX7R handie.  Nice run of nine QSOs, most including a pleasant natter with known friends and fellow SOTA enthusiasts.  Home for 11.30am BST, and surprised to find lunch was already being served.  Not just surprised, but delighted, as it was Marianne's chilli sweetcorn and chorizo broth, one of my favourites - it is utterly delicious.  19 QSOs including 10 more points for the 12m Challenge.