Jimmy has been hillwalking for 9 years; Marianne (my XYL) noticed that he loved a walk when he was very young, and so he has been doing circuits around Shutlingsloe, The Roaches, Goyt Valley and Shining Tor since he was 4 years old.  At 5 years and 3 days he became the youngest person ever to complete the traditional annual "Beating The Bounds" walk - 19 miles around the Macclesfield town boundary - a record that still stands today, and probably always will. 

Jimmy loved it when I started SOTA, and has done over 200 activations with me, including 163 unique summits. So unlike myself and many others, radio amateurs who took up "proper" hillwalking because of SOTA, Jimmy belongs to the smaller group of hillwalkers who took up amateur radio because of SOTA!  He had a long apprenticeship sitting alongside myself when operating, and doing jobs like setting up the SOTA Beam etc.  He did his Foundation course at the Macclesfield Wireless Society (GX4MWS) who were brilliant with him, and passed his exam on Thursday 15th September. Thanks to the help of Tim 2E0AYV (formerly M3EYP) and Denise Carter at Ofcom, authorisation for Jimmy to take M3EYP was made possible, and his licence came through in time to activate ahead of the weekend.

"What will I use my amateur radio licence for?", was a question that never entered Jimmy's head.  He had gone into amateur radio for one reason alone - SOTA!  We telephoned RLC on Thursday, who gave Jimmy immediate clearance to begin using M3EYP.  The licence arrived in the post on Saturday, and it showed the first valid date to be the Wednesday.  One thing was clear - he was doing his debut activations on the Sunday. Jimmy and myself set off at 7am, with Liam (who reckons he's going to be M2EYP, and that his grandad will be M4EYP - a bit of work to do on the Licensing Conditions chapter then), and headed for cooked breakfasts at Lymm Truck Stop.  I have now set up my car for passenger seat radio operation, with my old resoldered mag mount and old 2m aerial, and cigar lighter socket power cable installed there for Jimmy's new VX-110.  So it was him on this occasion that QSOd with Dave G3GAH and company on the outward journey

We took the A55 to Conwy, where Jimmy directed me onto the roads to Tal y Fan.  We tried to take the longer route around to avoid the hellishly narrow gated road from Rowen, but we ended up on that one again!  Soon we were backing into the grassy pull-in by the stile, and we were on our way.  Jimmy shot off into the distance, and Liam got a fair head start as I was organising the last few bits and bobs at the car. As usual, we didn't see Jimmy until the summit, but I did work him for chaser points when he called me and I was just below the coll, about 70m lower!  At the coll, Jimmy had taken the harder rocky path to the summit (the only one indicated on OS 1:25000).  Liam and myself walked on the coast side of the wall, considerably easier with only a couple of easy scrambles.  However, we later saw a much easier route which would have curved around the first rocky bits and taken a simple grassy slope to just before the summit.  How we hadn't seen that in three activations I don't know, but it was the route we descended on this time. At least the route chosen put me quickly within the activation zone, so when GW1INK/P called from NW-073, a chaser point and a new summit were bagged with a S2S contact.

We set up the FT-817 and SOTA Beam on the summit, and Jimmy kicked off by calling Myke G6DDQ on Red Screes G/LD-017. Jimmy did most of the operating, with me just diving in here and there for S2S contacts.  Carl GW0TQM appeared on summit with fishing pole and SOTA Beam in hand, and he wasn't to be the last amateur we met today.  We packed up after plenty of contacts each, and left the hill to Carl.  We tried for Roger M(W)0IDX listening from Manchester Airport, and Shirley MW0YLS with whom we had a "sked" of sorts, but suppose that the path due East from Tal y Fan is not the best.  Jimmy shot off at some ridiculous pace as usual, but at least this time I could keep tabs on him by calling him on his handheld with my handheld.  

So after over 200 SOTA activations, Jimmy is up and running.  Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM except G4BLH on 70cm, and all with 2.5 watts except Jimmy's first one on 0.5 watts: