Monday, 30th September, 2024

Seems like this month I’ve skipped quite a few days vs. what I had been doing. I think it’s because I’m obsessed with SOTA and do nothing else but look at summits, and read the forums.

I spend a lot of time researching routes, and then maintaining a spreadsheet with estimate door to door durations of trips. This is so I can figure out if I have enough time to go to a summit after dropping the kids at school and needing to be back before something else occurs. I found the site plotaroute.com allows me to set my own walking speed and it tries to adjust for gradients. Previously I was using OSMaps and that has a much slower walking speed, and so I’ve ended up wasting time or missing out on good summits in the summer months because of it.

I’ve also just bought a mountain bike on the Cycle2Work scheme, so I can bike and hike some of the summits and save time that way. Of course I’ll do some commuting to work with it as well.

The spreadsheet works well, and is sort of my notes for the summits as well. When working out the route I usually break it down into sections but then when I’m walking it, I just want the whole thing as a single route. I’ve also bought a Garmin inreach mini 2. Mostly for safety but also to have something else besides my phone with the route on it. Bigger hills I’ll take a print out of the map - although I should probably get a real map with more of the area. Ideally a waterproof version. So I’ll want to load the route onto that device. I’m also tempted to get a smart watch (possibly not Apple) for the route too…but that is maybe excessive. I’ll have to pay a subscription to Garmin to use the sat network but it’s not too bad on the lowest tier and if I ever did need it, I’ll not care about the monthly subscription. I want to do some of the higher hills and it hopefully gives some reassurance to everyone.

I’m also thinking of planning some overnighters for next year. Where I drive down on a day, hike somewhere, stay overnight (in the car? or maybe in a cheap hotel 😅) then hike again the next day and drive home. Should get in a few big hills with this method but not upset the family unit too much…perhaps I’ll pitch the idea once a month say. Well I want somewhere to keep a track of these trips and I’ve started in tiddlywiki but it’s not great. I don’t know why. Feel like I lose it in there and then forget about it. Perhaps I should repurpose that dokuwiki instance that I think is kicking around somewhere to use for it. Seems the wiki subdomain of my radio blog is still on ikiwiki. I could use that but I think dokuwiki is more convenient. Espeically if I want to keep track of some private things as well.

I had an idea of making a SOTA related website. Either one for the WhatsApp group chat, showing our stats or something. A simple static page, probably having to use javascript to query the API and get some numbers. And also one which helps figure out what I’ve been trying to do, namely “how long will it take me?”. That one is more complex and likely too much for me. Other than being a searchable record of my own information. Perhaps I should add it to my blog posts in the table. The radio blog still has lots of scope for more pages and things but yet to do anything about that.

It’s funny I still have to proof read blog posts in a browser, rendered as the webpage before I see typos.

Maybe I should use my blog for planning sota trips, rather than some other website…

Friday, 27th September, 2024

The dinner out was okay in the end. A weird disco that no one danced at. But I think someone should’ve told the DJ it was a work thing with lots of different companies and we are all cosy together.

The local radio guys are going out to do a big hill on Sunday - think 3rd highest in U.K. that’s nearby. I want to go but I have the kids to look after. They’re all older than me with grown up kids that have left home, so can just do whatever. I’m trying not to be disappointed. The mountains aren’t going anywhere and I’ve got years and years to do enjoy them all.

Part of it is because I do want to get 1000 points to get the Mountain Goat Trophy. But the reality is, it’s going to take me several years (5?) to get there. I’m on 63 right now. However if I do rush (and do it in 3 years) will I get bored and move on? There’s also the fact that if I do it this year then I can also do it again next year for the points.

Plus it was a good social and I don’t want to miss out.

I have next Friday off…I wonder if I can do it or similar myself then. Back to my mapping tools that I spend forever on!

Thursday, 26th September, 2024

Been away a bit and had a lovely midweek radio hike up a Munro with some radio friends. Plus a good chat in the cafe afterwards. Weather was stunning.

Got an engineering association dinner tonight and I really cba with it. So much crap, awards and fund raising and terrible jokes. Just want a dinner with colleagues and the chat with drinks afterwards. Not sure why I signed up again, probably is forgotten about last year.

Sunday, 22nd September, 2024

I really want to make one of these.

Saturday, 21st September, 2024

I didn’t go on the hike this morning. I woke up at 6:15 and was too tired, probably best as need to pack up for our trip away this weekend.

Trying to figure out which books in the various series of Brandon Sanderson I’ve missed and need to catch up on. Mostly extensions to trilogies he’s written or extra books set in the same world. Problem is some of these books I read years ago and will I remember the world and what’s going on? Probably doesn’t matter too much, I’m sure I’ll remember the gist of it at least. Glad I’ve kept a track of which books I’ve read (although 2019 I seemed to have forgotten).

Can’t decide on this Garmin watch…it’s a good deal but do I need it…? (No but that’s not the issue). Will I use it? I’ll probably use it because I have it.

Friday, 20th September, 2024

I ordered a smock and trousers from Alpkit and they arrived today. Trousers are perfect (after worrying about the size), smock.. I’m not sure. Lots of the reviews said go a size smaller. Someone even listed their stats and they were almost the same as me and said get a small. So I did. It fits okay and I like it’s a snug fit, think that’ll be better for keeping warm on a summit. I just can’t help wondering if a medium would’ve been better.

I don’t want to send it back as it was a bargain. It had an extra £50 off and then some random on Reddit gave me a £50 voucher! They won’t let me just swap it, they’ll refund and then I’ll have to buy again. It’s probably fine and I’ve had too big coats in the past.

Maybe 15-20 years ago I got a Barbour jacket and I tried it on and was going with medium but then ended up getting a large in case I was wearing a big jumper under it. Thing is, it’s never the weather for a big jumper under it, and if it was, I’d be wearing ski gear. So I’ve never worn it. I think it might still be in the cupboard and I should give it away.

Debating if I can nip off at 6am tomorrow and do a summit or if that’ll be too annoying for everyone else. Meant to be quite foggy in the morning so might not be ideal driving.

Thursday, 19th September, 2024

Solar is all installed and online. Got the data into home assistant, which is nice as it shows more details than the app. Particularly of note is the string power, as we have two sets of panels facing different directions. The charts are a bit odd but I’ll gather some more days to see what happens. I’m not convinced the installer installed the optimisers but I could be wrong. Also I’m sure they were going to install bird netting too. However, we generate quite a lot, even for September. Need to get export meter sorted and then swap tariffs.

The Home Assistant integration has so many things. I could so all sorts. However, I don’t know what to do and have done nothing. And possibly will do nothing other than gather data and make a nice dashboard.

Actually I would like a dashboard to see what’s going on, the defaults are hard to see what is happening. That’s not too complex so I can probably manage it.

Took some working from home liberties and went out to a summit this morning and worked later. It was absolutely glorious weather. I was 721m above sea level and there was no wind, and perfect blue skies all around. Scraped by with my 4 2m contacts but that’s enough so that’ll do. I had to be back for a meeting, although it was 30 minutes later than I thought. However, that was good as gave me time for a cup of tea and get sorted out.

Tuesday, 17th September, 2024

Solar install kicked off yesterday. All the panels are up and now it’s the inverter and battery hook up. I’d cleared a space in the garage for them to go on the wall, annoyingly they put it right in the middle of the wall and not to one side, so it takes up more space than necessary. “Oh it’s great, shame it’s not 1ft to the left…”

The weather is so nice all week…ideal for climbing hills not going to work…

Wife has booked a trip away for anniversary/birthday, which is nice. It’s to the flat part of Scotland, but maybe that’s best else I’d want to go out all day 😅

There’s an Alpkit sale on, and people rave about their outdoor clothing. It’s pricy, or I think it is but probably it’s going rate for this sort of stuff, but the “big sale” is like 15% off maximum, sometimes less. Which I’ll take but I wouldn’t call it a big sale, also the usual out of stock of medium/regular. I guess I should stop being so average…

I joined the Lecia society back in … July 2022, paid my dues but never received a magazine. They only come out quarterly so it took me until March 2023 before I emailed - partially forgetting about it. They promised to send me some but then never got anything. All the magazines are available online and the password they gave me still works…they sent out a questionaaire trying to find out why so few people attended their AGM. Probably terrible communications.

Sunday, 15th September, 2024

I want to get a GPS device for going on longer hikes. Whoa, what a rabbit hole. Probably not surprising. Fallen into looking at the Garmin smartwatches. Oh boy, there are a ridiculous number of models, sizes and features…a YouTube video said there are 15 editions. They’re all expensive, but there is a sale going on right now.

I mostly want the maps and safety functions of the GPS - including messaging and tracking for family - but not sure if the watch enables that too.

The Garmin with solar have ~30 days battery, although with GPS on it’s more like 30 hours.

Friday, 13th September, 2024

Lovely weather today. Went on a reasonable hike today up a 939m (3000ft) summit to play radio. Biked the first part from the car park, which I think was a bit beyond my bike’s capability and shook the thing (and me) to its limit! A mountain bike with suspension would’ve been better.

I didn’t drink that much on the walk and now my headache is pointing out that fact for me.

Wednesday, 11th September, 2024

I’m obsessed with SOTA…I spend all evenings looking at nearby summits, planning routes - on OS Maps for the walk, then Google maps for the driving portion, then make a spreadsheet of door to door times. I need to get a bike and bike rack for the electric car so I can do some of the long run up hills. The radio is only a small part of it but I also want to collect the points.

I’ve started thinking about trips away specifically for SOTA summits. Not that I really have time to do them or fit into the family schedule.

Monday, 9th September, 2024

Feel like I’ve made a rod for my own back with writing a blog post for each sota summit I do on my radio blog. Had four to catch up on yesterday, although unlikely to do four in a week again for a while.

It’s nice having them done though. Not sure what I’ll do when I revisit sites next year. Maybe keep a page that’s just a list with no links or pages but then each time I do a unique summit I write about it? I’ll worry about that when it comes along.

Makes me wonder if I should write some things for my original blog now…👀

The Atari is fun although I don’t really have time to faff about with it

Friday, 6th September, 2024

Went to Trespass after work to look for some boots. They had lots of backpacks and other clothes I thought about buying but not quite sure what I want. I want to be able to go out in the winter period as you get bonus points but not sure how well I’ll be prepared.

Tried on several pairs of boots and didn’t really know what I wanted. Bought some with nice big tread, seemed useful for boggy places which, if it’s been raining, most place round here can be quite boggy.

I don’t know if I should try and go out again this weekend but feel bad that I take off by myself for half the day. Wife and daughter are away tomorrow at a swimming competition. Might take the others up a small hill that I want to cross off the list. If I could take someone with me then I wouldn’t feel too bad but I’d like to do some higher hills and they’re probably too much for them. The boys have a party in the afternoon so that helps, but I like to go in the morning when it’s wasted time. Oh I don’t know.

Annoyingly I had to work today and it’s beautiful sun. Another guy went up a high peak and the views were spectacular. I’ve done that hill and the views were good even when overcast.

Solar install has started. Scaffolding went up today, panels should go on Monday. Need to refresh my home assistant setup for solar to do things…which I’ve forgotten what they were going to be. I’ll enjoy generating our own power but the excitement of it has worn off as it’s been ages since we first started looking into it. What with summer holidays and power company process etc. I’m sure once I see them on the roof and the boxes in the garage I’ll be excited again.

Thursday, 5th September, 2024

Kids smashed an iPad screen this morning. My iPad in fact, although they always use it so I never do. I wasn’t even that mad about it. I shouted at them but mostly as I was annoyed they still hadn’t got dressed for school.

Part of me wants to rid our lives of devices, and so this helps. But also maybe this is the excuse I need to buy that remarkable pro 😅

Wednesday, 4th September, 2024

Was off today, instead of my usual Friday, as there are meetings at work I can’t skip or change. Went up three hills with radio and tried out my new homemade yagi antenna - all worked well which was nice. Tired now after all that walking! Also think my shoes are done for as they were leaking on the first hill and my feet were sodden for the whole day. They were okay but I wonder if washing them didn’t help, or maybe as they were still damp this morning from drying (after washing) that that let the water come in easier? It was pretty muddy and wet with long grass and things so maybe shouldn’t be unexpected. I need to get some proper boots and maybe gaiters too.

I had thought up a big rant I was going to write about politics and Brexit and how stupid people were to vote for it, because the country is collapsing into nothingness and taxing everyone all the way to the bottom. Plus make large sweeping generalisations about the racist generation who benefited from no means tested benefits from the government, had all the house price rises, and so on, who now complain over losing a heating allowance when they most probably life in a huge drafty house they had when they had kids at home. If they sold it and moved to somewhere right sized, their heating bill would be considerably lower, and probably they’d have several 100,000s of pounds extra. But it’s too late for all that.

Monday, 2nd September, 2024

Wrote up my big radio hike today, which was good. Reminds me I need to upload my log into my logbook. It’s a web based logbook which is fine but there are lots of things I don’t like. Someone made a fork of it, I forget who and what they called it, hopefully I wrote that in the wiki, and I’ve been wondering about changing to it. It’s slightly annoying I have to make a new station location for each summit I do. Not sure why I can’t just have callsign and callsign/P for portable operations.

It’s much better than some of the programs people use. Mostly as lots of hams have been doing radio for decades, when the first computer program came along they started using that. Now 20 years later they don’t want to move from it, but my goodness does it look horrendous. Like this. Called Logger32 as it’s 32 bit…A new version was released in 2021, so not bad. Anyway, if it works…

Updated my book list, also on this site, as I’d not done it in a while. I’ve been reading lots of short stories in a series by Lois McMaster Bujold. They’re easy reading before bed and it’s nice just continuing with the same characters. It’s like a TV series and each book is an episode. I’m on book 12 out of 13, so nearly finished. Then I’ll have to find something else to read. I’m torn between reading all the discworld again or something new. Next year will be 10 years since I finished the last one. So maybe 2025 is a good year to start them again, not sure I could read them all in one year, think there’s about 40 odd. Most aren’t that long, so feasible to do one a week, I’ll see. Really I should read them to the kids, although I think they’ll want to be a little older?

Maybe go for another hike on Wednesday, had to swap my day off, weather is so-so, end of the week looks much better but too many difficult things to move at work to go then. Chance of rain is low, each time I look it’s between 5-30% and moves around all day, so likely not know until I’m actually there. Also looking at getting a mountain bike as there are several summits which have a long run up and either makes a long boring walk, or a nice cycle. Probably don’t need anything special as I won’t use it that much, but used is always a pain. I do have the cycle2work scheme I can use to buy a new bike pre-tax…just then risk end up spending more!

Sunday, 1st September, 2024

Went for a big walk today with a local friend I met via radio. Was a 26km route, some biking and rest walking, summit was 1150+ m. Took us about 6 hours including activating the summit on the radio. Weather was fine although the cloud didn’t lift off the summit until we were on our way back down, but the views were spectacular. I left at 5am so I could be back home early afternoon for kids activities. Was going to go out again tomorrow, but the weather is looking terrible, maybe Wednesday might work? I normally have Friday off but have to work this one, and typically the weather is lovely on Friday.

Also need to clean and dry my shoes, but really I need some walking boots.

Been busy, although now that I think of it, I’m not sure with what.