Tap O’Noth
Bring your parents day
A pretty big sun CME hit and caused some lovely aurora all around the UK, however, this meant the bands were wrecked this morning. K of 7. Although dxheat was showing 40m activity in Europe this morning so I thought I’d try it. I had wanted to do some 20m to get a some nice EU contacts, as I thought that might be more interesting.
My mum is visiting and after all the sunny hillside photos I’ve been sending her, she wanted to come out and see the sights for herself. The weather wasn’t quite as spectacular as recent outings to Lochnagar and An Socach, but it was nice enough. After we dropped the kids at school, we headed up. There’s a dedicated car park, Tap O’Noth car park, and a nice track all the way to the top, so it was a straight forward walk. My mum did have a stroke about 11 years ago, and that does limit her at times. I’d hoped this summit wouldn’t be too much for her. When you arrive you’re greeted with this huge lump that sticks out of the ground and looks imposing, I thought I took a photo but it appears not.
With a few stops on the way, we all made it to the top in good time. The cloud had come in a little and it was much windier but still decent weather. The top of this hill used to be a fort back in the Dark Ages, and so offers plenty of shelter from the wind.
I setup near the trig point in a nice recess in the side. I’d brought the G90 and my 5.5m vertical random wire. The G90 can match this tiny length of wire on any band, even 40m! Although probably longer wires would be better. I’d also brought my end fed half wave, but the 5.5m vertical is so fast to setup. As I was worried the novelty of watching me on the radio would wear off soon, and the cold wind would get to everyone, I stuck with this vertical. I gave 40m a shot, and did manage to just hear Phil, G4OBK. We were both 31 with each other. I then heard my HT as locals were chatting and asking if I’d already been and gone or what had happened. I’d emailed earlier in the day saying I was going up but had put 11am and we’d left later so it was closer to 11:30am.
I had the RH-770 on the HT and joined in the conversation, saying I was on the summit. Simon, GM4JXP, and Chris, 2M0RVZ, quickly called in and I was more than qualified. Simon was testing a new home made 5 el yagi and was absolutely deafening when he called! I tried one more CQ but I’d done the job so thought it was time I packed up and headed down - we didn’t want to be late for lunch! My mum liked the chats we all had on 2m, and said everyone sounded very friendly. If I had been on 20m or higher frequencies, it might’ve been exciting countries but nothing more than callsigns and RST exchanges.
The trip down was easy enough, we actually met a few other walkers on their way up, and we were back in the car heading to Alford to try out a cafe for lunch. Soup and sandwiches all round with a sense of accomplishment by all. A very enjoyable trip out. Tap O’Noth will be a good one to do during the Winter bonus period (30 Nov-14 Mar) to get 5 points from it! The shelter the old fort offers is very nice for keeping out of the cold winds!
