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ICOM UK Provides the Means to Climb Three Mountains

ntl:Telewest Business, now part of the Virgin Media Group, ran a national “Three Peaks Challenge” over the 12th & 13th of June 2008 to raise money for The Foyer Federation Charity, Virgin Media’s chosen charity of 2008. The challenge was to walk the three highest mountain peaks in the UK over 27 hours, in designated teams of 5. ICOM UK provided the whole enterprise with the necessary VHF communication equipment to complete the challenge, which this year raised an impressive £64,000.

The “3 Peaks” refer to the three mountains that the teams scaled in their epic walk. In Scotland, there was Ben Nevis peaking at a massive 1344m. In England, they would have to walk to the summit of Scafell Pike at 978m, and in Wales there was Snowdon to contend with at a height of 1085m. The time limit to complete the whole event was a mere 27 hours.

There were 37 teams of 5 people taking part in the event and a crew of 26 Marshalls, making a total of over 200 people involved in the challenge. To ensure the safety of all participants and support teams in the sometimes harsh conditions of the mountains, each team leader, deputy team leader and marshal was issued with an ICOM handheld IC-F15 handheld two way radios, along with some spare batteries. Over 100 radios were used in operations. At each mountain, the Check Point (CP) vehicles were issued with at least one mobile IC-F110S mobile two way radio to facilitate contact between the units, the walkers and the other communications support vehicles.

As the teams and Marshals checked in at the Ben Nevis start point, they were issued with their IC-F15 handheld radios and given basic operational instructions on how to use them. Observations and feedback from the participants indicated that even the technically-challenged easily understood how to use the IC-F15 radios. The use of volume, channel changing, battery replacement, push-to-talk operation and basic radio procedure, proved no problem to the teams.

Garth Matthews, NTP 2008 Event Director commented, “The temperature at the summit of Ben Nevis was at freezing point with an additional wind chill, but the IC-F15s and batteries worked impressively without any issue at this temperature extreme."

At Scafell Pike, each Marshall was again issued with an IC F15 handheld unit for communications back to base camp. Information regarding the walking teams progress was communicated from Control Point 1 to the Santon vehicle via a dedicated radio link and antenna, using 2 Icom IC-F110S mobile units across a rugged mountain path spanning Wast Water. A very reliable and clear audio channel was maintained throughout the 12 hours of operation at Scafell, which demonstrated the robust design of the Icom IC-F110S mobile units under the harsh working conditions.

During the last leg of the event, the Marshalls used IC-F15s to communicate with the teams on the mountain, and an IC-F110S mobile unit to contact the other Snowdon Marshall team at the finish line.

Event Director Garth Matthews commented, “The organising team and mountain marshals were extremely impressed with all the radio equipment loaned for the event by ICOM UK. The IC-F15 ruggedness, ease of use, reliability and functionality was superb. No faults on any equipment were encountered, even under the extremes of temperature and weather conditions in the mountains, which ranged from snow conditions on Ben Nevis to bright sunshine on Snowdon.

“The IC-FC110S mobile units were again exceptionally reliable and easy to use. They provided essential radio traffic backhaul links at Scafell and Snowdon and were key to the radio communications network being operational in the mountains, providing radio links that ‘in theory’ should not have worked!

“The compact nature and straightforward controls makes the IC-F110S unit an excellent choice for extreme mobile operational environments.

“ntl:Telewest Business could not have run this years National Three Peaks event without the fantastic support from the people in ICOM UK and the quality of the equipment provided. The organising team would like to thank ICOM UK for their continual support and hope we can all work together again in the future.”

ICOM UK would like to congratulate all entrants on completing this epic challenge!

Icom UK Marketing - marketing@icomuk.co.uk