M0NOM/P: G/LD-051 Holme Fell

Another fairly quick activation today of a local one-point summit, Holme Fell. The fell lies to the North of the town of Coniston with good views towards Coniston Water, The Old Man of Coniston, The Langdales and Helvellyn. The forecast was for light rain/drizzle during the afternoon so we took our pak-a-macks but it didn’t look that bad out the window and as it turned out it was warm with no rain and light winds. Last time I was here was on New Years Eve last year, drinking champagne with a group of walkers one of whom had just completed the Wainwrights. This time it was water only!

The route up is via a parking space on the main road between Ambleside and Coniston, the A593 next to Yew Tree Tarn. You can walk either round the South or the North end of the Tarn to pick up the summit ascent as there is a circular walk. The trees to the North end of the tarn are spectacular both in their height and absolute straightness!

The ascent is fairly steep on a rock and gravel lined path, gently at first from the trees and then unrelenting to the summit, albeit only a 20 minute or so climb.

We headed for Long Crag initially for a quick look at the view South over Coniston Water before setting up near the Cairn Stones. I was using the MCHF clone with MiniPA50 Amp powered by a 4.5AH 4C LiPo through a SotaBeam Quadbander Dipole 20/30/40/80m inverted V configuration using a 10m travel mast (with the top of the dipole around 8 metres).


Coniston Water

Clearly the 20m band was working well and there was a quick and sustained response to my Spot. This included a S2S with @HB9BIN on Hauchenberg in the Allgäuer Alpen region of Germany, good copy.

80m seemed fairly flat, which has been quite common lately and I struggled a QSO with Geoff @GM4WHA in Annan, Scotland until realising subsequently the antenna was still set to 40m! After correcting this I had another couple of QSOs on 80m before 2m FM and 2m C4FM. I caught Jordan @M3TMX calling SOTA CQ on 2m FM from Arneside Knott as I reset the handheld and we had a good chat about his day’s activities.


Old Man of Coniston on the left behind Wetherlam

I noticed that Phil @G4OBK was enjoying another SOTA excursion into Europe, this time in France. At this time he was working 20m CW so I figured if we hung around for a bit we might get lucky with a third S2S. Right on cue the spot came through and I was able to work Geoff on Le Haut Koenigsbourg in the Vosges region of France. Great!

On the way down we decided to take a longer route to avoid the steep descent which was on a decent path, then a back road before tracking back to the car on a path that followed the main road. Alex spotted all sorts of wildlife including some wonderful butterflies and dragonflies.

Time Call Band Mode Notes
13:11z RW3XZ 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:12z 9A6DTX 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:12z HB9MKV 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:12z SV2FLM 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:13z OK2PDT 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:14z DL/HB9BIN/P 14MHz SSB S2S on DL/AL-145 from G/LD-051
13:14z SA4BLM 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:15z SQ9MDF 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:15z SQ9NOT 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:16z 9A1AA 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:16z ON4UZ 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:17z OK1SDE 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:18z PH1DLB/P 14MHz SSB 15km North of Amsterdam
13:19z EA2DT 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:23z GM4WHA 3.5MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:29z G3OKA 3.5MHz SSB John The Wirral
13:30z G6NHW/A 3.5MHz SSB Pete Birmingham
13:36z G4PJE/P 144MHz FM Ray Great Eckleston Icom 290D 20w
13:41z G7CDA 144MHz FM Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:42z G6ZAK/M 144MHz FM Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:43z G1OHH 144MHz FM 26.8 miles
13:44z 2W0SEU 144MHz FM Malc
13:46z G1OHH 144MHz DV 26.8 miles
13:48z G7CDA 144MHz DV Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
13:49z M3TMX/P 144MHz FM S2S with Jordan on G/LD-058 from G/LD-051
14:07z OD5ZZ 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
14:13z OM18FIFA 14MHz SSB Thx for SOTA chase from G/LD-051 IO84lj
14:18z F/G4OBK/P 14MHz SSB S2S with Phil on FL/VO-073 from G/LD-051

Cheers to all the chasers, 73! M0NOM

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Hi Mark,

I was still monitoring 3.686 after our difficult QSO and after a couple of minutes you came up to a 59 with me. I thought it was just a mixture of conditions and QSB but having the aerial set to 40m explains why we struggled!

Great to work you and thanks for perservering!

73’s Geoff

GM4WHA

Always nice to have a simple solution, ‘dipole set incorrect’ rather than ‘sun not being cooperative’.

I had a QSO with Nigel 2E0TUE near Sedburgh when on Gummer’s How on Saturday morning and we switched to 20m groundwave as 80m was way too noisy, hence my apprehension and acceptance when the band wasn’t responding today. 20m groundwave proved great and we were both able to turn up the AF gain and down the RF gain for a nice noise free copy.

Thanks for the chase, 73, Mark.

Nice to see your activations don’t bother your partner but even make smiles on both faces. Same here, and I am that way happy to be able to share our beautiful and manifold activity. It’s not a given.

Vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ

Hi Marcus, you are right I am blessed to have such an understanding wife! She calls it my ‘radio geekiness’ - I was (still am) a computer geek so she has been conditioned to me having unusual hobbies. We’d much prefer that to constantly thinking about our next meal and nothing else!

Regards, Mark

p.s. I tried to keep the activation short today so we could spend some time together grokking the scenery.

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