The first Summits on the Air outing for a while – a post by Barry GM4TOE in the gm13 group had made me decide to do a little local hill, so I went up Scald Law which is a good walk on a nice day.

I arrived at the summit in plenty time to set up before the time I had put on the SOTA alert. Here’s the kit before assembly:

The transverter is home brew (and the main board home designed), with a commercial PA which is capable of much more power when I eventually get round to setting things up better!

I had put together a new “mast” yesterday, with a spike made from some aluminium angle to avoid messing with guys or having to hand-hold the antenna. The 12-ele DL6WU Yagi is the one I have used for some time.

Here’s the spike fixing:

and the antenna itself in one of my two general purpose boom mounts:

The pole, antenna boom, etc. are all made from electrical conduit or plumbing pipe that is a sliding fit.

It was a lovely sunny day to sit at the station with a spectacular view including the new Queensferry Crossing of the Forth.

Immediately I made the usual beacon check; GB3CSB was coming in at 59+ so the receiver was clearly OK (I hadn’t used the kit since last October). Within 10 minutes I heard Andy MM0FMF calling on frequency (2320.200MHz, but with my homebrew rig I need to tune about 2kHz up. Not a problem, and it’s extremely stable). After a chat with Andy (59+) on Cairnpapple Hill GM/SS-254,  Jim MM0GLM came on from GM/SS-067 Beinn Dearg at 58.

We had to wait a wee while before Barry GM4TOE came on from Innerdouny Hill GM/SS-169 (also 58), but that made a third 13cm summit to summit contact. OK, the hill wasn’t qualified for SOTA points but I don’t care at all, I’ve been there plenty times before.

Finally here’s a view of the complete station for 2.3GHz – nice and compact.