Friday evening 19th August 2005
GM/CS-111 - Creag Bheag - 487m - NH745017 - 1 point
7 QSOs: 20m CW - 4, 80m CW - 3
We were experiencing hot sunny weather in the West Highlands so I didn't think to study the weather too much when I headed east to Kingussie. However, the east was not so benign. I parked in Kingussie and wandered up a very pleasant path for about 30 mins to the top of Creag Bheag. For the next hour and a half I was alternately drenched by very heavy downpour and then mobbed by clouds of biting midges. It was horrendous and had I not taken the midge net I wouldn't have lasted 2 minutes. This has got to be the most unpleasant activation conditions I have experienced! I remember considerably more pleasant conditions in the grip of full-on winter storms on a 10 pointer!
However, it was a good test for my new 'combo pole' which is made up of my normal walking poles with one of G3CWI's new Minipoles attached to the top giving me a fairly robust 5m+ pole. The wonderful thing about this is that it all fits in the rucsac unlike the normal SOTApole. And it is considerably lighter as well. The connection is made up of a piece of overflow pipe padded with neoprene to fit snugly on top of the walking pole and then slides up inside the Minipole - solid.
First up was 20m where I worked DL7JSM, DL7UKA, DL4ALI & DL9VSB to qualify the summit, then GM4CXP, EI7CC & G3CWI on 80m. All good signals. My flask was enjoyed on the trip back in the car. I had absent mindedly tried to both drink tea and eat sandwiches through the midge net ... didn't work!
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