On Tinto

Club members  once again climbed Tinto and operated a SOTA station from the summit.

They located various Geocaches on the way and left club badges.
The weather was quite cold with some snow at the top but they were able to make the necessary contacts to activate the hill.
In addition they also completed some summit to summit contacts with fellow SOTA enthusiasts.

We have added new material to our Badge Work page.
Check it out before you leave the site.

Inside the Shack

We have now completed the refurbishment of our club radio shack in the Scout Headquarters building.
The new shack features two operating positions and one logging position, with room for interested visitors
A new feature is the prominent place occupied by our wall mounted lcd monitor screens.
These display our current radio setup and electronic logbook as well as propagation information and digital mode decoding output.
The HFsetup consists of a computer controlled Kenwood TS-2000 Transciever connected to an Alfa Delta DX-CC antenna or a Comet HF vertical (both antennas are switchable).
The shack also features a Linear Amp UK HF Linear Amplifier.

The VHF/UHF position is occupied by a Kenwood TM-V71 Dual Band Transciever running into a roof mounted co-linear antenna.
A neat feature of the shack is that all the equipment is removed at the end of the operating period and stowed in our off-site secure storage facillity.

Bob and Laurence at the summit

Club members were out and about in the Lanarkshire hills last weekend.
We continued our quest for points in the Summits on the Air (SOTA) challenge and activated Tinto a 700 metre plus hill.

While on the summit we completed 10 contacts with other amateur radio stations in central and southern Scotland.
We also successfully located the Tinto geocache and left our club Geocache badge and also the Greenock and District Scouts Badge.

Activity was somewhat curtailed by a heavy snowstorm while we were on the summit.

Tinto cache