SOTA: G/SC-003 (Beacon Batch)

I visited Beacon Batch around nine in the morning on a chilly weekend in January. There is a convenient parking area near this site and the name is particularly encouraging: the Burrington Ham Parking Lot (51.319928N, 2.734174W). However, in this case, not everyone parking there was a ham. Despite drizzly weather and temperature just below freezing, there was a lot of activity in this area: hikers, bikers, horse riders, even an orienteering group walking around with compasses and maps, so the parking lot was almost full when I arrived. I would suggest getting here early on weekend days. It is possible to park along the verge, and if you do so, I would recommend picking a straight part of the road uphill from the car park, so you have a better view of oncoming traffic (and vice versa).

There were a few ancient barrows off the side of the trail on the way up to the summit.

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SOTA: G/SC-010 (Dundry Down)

This was the third summit of the day, the first two being G/SC-008 (Win Green) and G/SE-001 (Walbury Hill). When I arrived, the town was smothered in thick fog and the winter sun was low on the horizon. Getting here was not difficult, I typed “Dundry Down Carpark” into Google Maps, and that brought me to the carpark at the trail head, just a bit uphill from the town church. Coordinates for the carpark are 51.399084N, 2.639259W.

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SOTA: G/SC-008 (Win Green)

Engraving on the summit marker.

Since my office is based in Sussex, I’ve been focusing on G/SE, so this was my first foray into the south-central area. Win Green has been described as a very popular site, and that was the definitely true on the day I went there. The whole hill top is surrounded by fences, so a really excellent place for dogs to have a chance to run around.

Parking is no problem – typing “Win Green Visitor’s Car Park” into satnav should get you there, or for those who want their coordinates old school: 50.983630N, 2.110948W.

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SOTA: G/SE-001 (Walbury Hill)

My plan for this relativey mild January morning was to head west from the offince in Crawley towards Bristol and to nab a few activations on the way. For Saturday, my route took me to G/SE-001 (Walbury Hil), G/SC-008 (Win Green), and G/SC-010 (Dundry Down). These sites were chosen because they looked like they had reasonable parking for my rental car and would be relatively quick. After three years of living in Cyprus, where almost all the hills are either bare or support only scrub, it was a relief to activate hills that have trees large enough to support an antenna. For these summits, I just brought along my coiled up end-fed antenna, a string, and a plastic coke bottle half full of water — no poles.

The first site was Walbury Hill, which has a good size parking lot at 51.356339N 1.469907W.

If that were full, I think you could park on the side of the dirt road that leads up the hill to the west.

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SOTA: FL/SO-008 (Île)

I activated this peak on the same day as FL/SO-006 (see that report); from there, this peak was about a half hour drive. I noted one item of interest on the map when planning this activation: the summit (red marker) it is just around the corner from a French military installation (most southern marker) that is bristling with large satellite dishes and surrounded by high, serious-looking fences with lots of warning signs. My suggestion is to steer clear of that facility while walking around with a backpack full of radio gear.

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SOTA: FL/SO-006 (Les Garennes du Monteil)

I set out to activate three summits in early November 2022: SO-005, SO-006, and SO-008, which are more or less clustered together. It is about a two and half hour drive from my house south of Bordeaux out to any one of these, but only about a half hour drive between them, going north to south. Alas, I did not manage to activate SO-005 on this trip. I drove partway up the access road and there was a wild boar ( les sangliers ! ) hunt going on: lots of guys in orange vests walking through the woods with rifles. I had a nice chat with a couple of them, but we all agreed it would be safer if I didn’t sit in the woods with a wire in a tree that afternoon. It was the last site of the day, so I was ready to head home anyhow. SO-005 will have to wait for another day.

SO-006, however, was a drive-up activation.

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SOTA: FL/SO-011 (Le Petit Peyre)

The buddipole in vertical configuration with a retractable dog-leash supported counterpoise.

I recently moved to France, not far from Bordeaux, so there are a whole new set of peaks to activate, particularly to the south towards the Pyrenee mountains. However, it makes sense to get my feet wet with some closer summits to the east of me, towards Bergerac. One in particular, Le Petit Peyre, was a little closer (90 km) than the others, so I started with that one.

To apply for a French callsign, you need to show residency in the country for more than three months, and I’m not quite there yet, so I activated as F/AI4SV/P.

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SOTA: 5B/CY-002 (Madari) Encore

Sunset seen from the parking lot.

For my last SOTA activation while living in Cyprus, I decided to go back to the first peak I activated, but approach it differently. The first time, I took the foot trail to the west of the peak, this time I took the road to the east of the peak. Both got the job done, and it’s really a matter of taste as to which one is best.

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SOTA: 5B/CY-019 Kalogyria

I tried and failed to activate Kalogyria earlier this year and did not have time for another attempt before leaving Cyprus, so hopefully this information will benefit the next person making the attempt.

Here is the culprit – one of the tire nuts, which proved impossible to remove when my Landcruiser’s tire blew out as I wound the trail on the way up the mountain. My tire iron had a hard time maintaining a grip on the nut and after a few attempts I stopped because I didn’t want to strip it. When I came back up the mountain with a better tire iron, the nut was finally removed forcefully by applying enough force to break the bolt off within the nut (right image).
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French IF Competition: 2022

There are only two weeks left to play and vote on games in the annual French interactive fiction competition. Games are hosted on itch.io and voting is via an online form. There are ten games this year, but you can vote without having to play all of them. Each year has an optional theme, which authors may use for inspiration. This year had two: reflection and masks. As usual, rules for the competition are available online.

This competition has a history of strong innovation, and this year was not disappointing with games written in a variety of systems, some of which have not been widely adopted outside the French community.

I’ve written some short review below. Although I played the games in random order, I am listing the first three in the order of preference, which I am sure breaks every rule of blog clickbait. If you have limited time, these are the ones not to miss.

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