Quick charge up the Island’s #2 SOTA summit in order to take advantage of the winter bonus. For some reason I always think of this one as being a lengthy hike, but today I timed it as being just 18 minutes up the side of Sartfell and another 12 minutes from there to the summit, so hardly strenuous.
Ascent
Start from the car part at the bottom of Sartfell and head up the side of the plantation. After 1.2 km turn left off the greenway and follow the smaller footpath up to the summit. Can be quite boggy in places.
Summit
Bare and reasonably flat. A good size cairn next to the trig point and a very handy post (complete with bell) make for convenient antenna supports. Reasonable cellphone signal for spotting and excellent views all around, this would be an ideal summit for pulling an all-nighter.
Contacts
After scanning recent spots and bagging an S2S with SQ9MDF/P on SP/BZ-008 I tried to find a slot on 20m, but there was a lot of radar-type QRM taking out almost half the band. Managed to get a spot out regardless and worked another 3 stations before moving to 40m and immediately getting a call from previous activator GD4OFB, just down the road in Ramsey! Another 10 contacts followed before the wind chill became too much and I took the HF antenna down while my fingers were still working. Just then my ID-52 came alive on 145.500 and I worked GM4KNU on GM/SS-082, book-ending my activation with another S2S.
| Time | Callsign | Band | Mode | Dist (km) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14:00 | SQ9MDF/P | 14MHz | SSB | 1684 | S2S SP/BZ-008 |
| 14:10 | EA3EVL | 14MHz | SSB | 1555 | |
| 14:11 | ON6ZQ | 14MHz | SSB | 722 | |
| 14:14 | DL9NCI | 14MHz | SSB | 1193 | |
| 14:18 | GD4OFB | 7MHz | SSB | 9 | Serious DX … |
| 14:22 | GW0PLP | 7MHz | SSB | 242 | |
| 14:23 | M0MDA | 7MHz | SSB | 202 | |
| 14:24 | G0BFJ | 7MHz | SSB | 191 | |
| 14:25 | 2E0AGB | 7MHz | SSB | 200 | |
| 14:26 | G0FEX | 7MHz | SSB | 284 | |
| 14:28 | G0HRT | 7MHz | SSB | 357 | |
| 14:29 | G7SXR | 7MHz | SSB | 197 | |
| 14:29 | G3VCG | 7MHz | SSB | 434 | |
| 14:31 | M0VAZ | 7MHz | SSB | 134 | |
| 14:33 | M0YMC | 7MHz | SSB | 119 | |
| 14:40 | GM4KNU/P | 144MHz | FM | 144 | S2S GM/22-082 |
Descent
Same way down, just a little quicker.
Summary
Essentially a quick smash & grab in sunny conditions, very enjoyable. One day I’d like to camp here overnight and that shouldn’t be too hard with plenty of flat-ish ground inside the AZ.
