Bin of Cullen
A windy day
This was our GM/ES North East activation day, where we all activate some of the 1 pointers to the North of Aberdeenshire. I certainly need to activate several of them to complete the ES region, and it’s nice to get some completes as well as have a day out with lots of people out and about. Makes it more fun when there’s some 2m activity, plus we all try to meet up afterwards for “tea and medals”.
Well what a windy day! Don’t think we were expecting it to be quite this bad, however, no-one was blown away! 🥳
I was doing Bin of Cullen, GM/ES-084, and then Knock Hill, GM/ES-073. On the way there the A96 was closed by the police, and no diversions had been setup, so it was a random drive following Google Maps hoping to return to the A96 further north…of which the first attempt was still closed by the police. Anyway, I made it, and it only cost about 15 minutes. The others had already started and many comments on whatsapp about the wind were pinging on my phone. Apart from the wind, it was a lovely day.
I went to the top, had a selfie, and my first summit to summit with Mike, 2M0WNA, on the Buck, but moved off the top to find some shelter to setup.
Some trees and hillside kept me sheltered from the worst of it, and I worked Chris, 2M0RVZ, on Meikle Balloch, Archie GM4KNU on Lochnagar, and a new SOTA activator, Jane, 2M0IZS on Lord Arthur’s Hill (recently inspired to try SOTA thanks to a presentation by Mike 2M0WNA at the Aberdeen club). Fraser was driving still, so a mobile 2m FM contact with him.
A chap walked by whilst I was setting up HF but he didn’t notice me, mostly had his head down due to the wind. He did wave hi on his way back down.
Simon, GM4JXP, was in The Canaries on EA8/GO-001, and was a booming 58 on 15m to me. I chased another activator in Poland, to end up with 6 S2Ss, before it was time to head over to the next summit.
