When the alarm went off at 0545 on Xmas Day morning, I really began to question my sanity. My alert had been on the system for a year and despite the inclement weather, I really wanted to do this activation. However, fifteen minutes after leaving my QTH, it started to rain and by the time I pulled up at the parking spot near Meerbrook, I was beginning to wish I’d stayed in bed.
The rain by now was heavy and the track to the trig point which had been blessed with almost continuous rain since Tom last activated it 3 or 4 days earlier, was more or less was a total mud bath
On reaching the trig, I quickly deployed the dome tent next to the Hawthorne tree, then chucked my by now drenched rucksack inside and erected the colinear for VHF.
My CQ on 145.500 was met by quite a number of chasers and the log quickly began to fill up. In very short order there were almost 50 chasers logged.
My summit to summit with Alistair M0BKQ/P on G/LD-001 alone, made my activation worthwhile. Fantastic effort by Alister to activate Scafell Pike on Xmas Day! Thanks also to Karen, for GW/NW-043.
Due to time constraints, I had to QSY to HF. For simplicity and speed, I tied a bit of wire to my fishing pole and chucked it into the Hawthorne tree.
I self spotted on 20m and then waited for the cavalry to arrive. Within a few minutes, I was working quite a pile-up and 40 minutes later, a further 80 chaser were in the log. Both Phil G4OBK and Don G0RQL making the trip on 20m.
40m was less fruitful, with about half a dozen contacts.
Anyhow, 140 contacts logged in just a few hours was a great result for an Xmas morning.
My apologies to Barry N1EU, I didn’t see your spot asking me to QSY back to 20m until after I packed up.
What a great way to spend a few hours on an Xmas morning, I can thoroughly recommend it.
73 Mike
2E0YYY