We were visiting St Andrews for the graduation of a family member at the University. After our previous days long drive from North Yorkshire, which included a lunch stop to conduct our first ever activation of Hightown Hill near Lockerbie, we wanted to stretch our legs, so we combined this with more SOTA activation. Mount Hill (SS-277) near Cupar at GR NO 331165 was close by and easy to access.

The hill had been activated in May 2005 by Jim G0CQD so we became only the second activators. The picture right shows XYL Judy manning the logbook at the Summit, dominated by the Hopetoun Monument. This is a chimney like structure that was built with another near Haddington, East Lothian, to unite two parts of a large estate on each side of the Firth of Forth. The monument was built in 1825 in the memory of Sir John Hope, the 4th Earl of Hopetoun. On the day of our visit the access door to the top of the monument was locked.

Parking for a few vehicles is available at the wide farm gates GR NO 339159. From here it is an easy track to the top, partly through woodland with an ascent of 400 feet over less than one mile. We were setting up the station within 20 minutes. Yaesu FT817 (5 watts), SOTA Beam for 2m mounted on a SOTA Pole, and an RG58 fed inverted vee for 40m was also used. We fired up on 2m SSB at 1035z and also tried 40m SSB with limited success, however the summit was well qualified with nine contacts, including one S2S QSO on 2m with John GW4BVE in Mid Wales:

Call	Band	Mode	Remarks
G4JZF	2m	SSB	Graham
G1JKX	2m	SSB	John
G0NES	2m	SSB	Don
GW4BVE/P	2m	SSB	John S2S MW-017
GM3SBC	2m	SSB	Ed
2E0NHM	2m	SSB	Nigel
G6LKB	2m	SSB	Dave
G4JZF	40m	SSB	Graham
G6LKB	40m	SSB	Dave

We packed up the station, and headed downhill for our lunch, before driving to our next activation, Norman Law SS-262 which was only 3 miles from Mount Hill. Very convenient with fantastic views above the Firth of Tay and never ever activated before.

Philip Catterall G4OBK 28/02/06

SS-277 Webpage visits since 28th Feb 2006