Thursday was a glorious but cold day. There was quite a stiff wind (although nothing like the 40mph last week) so I chose Buckden Pike G/NP-009 as I know the summit wall is a good wind break. I parked on the road in Starbotton as usual and went up via Buckden Lead Mine.
On my last activation last Saturday of Calf Top G/NP-022 I had struggled on HF. Signals were weak (not helped by the strong wind flapping my tarp) and I had very few callers. On returning home I tried my rig and found it was not receiving or transmitting well. It’s a homebrew rig and I realised the problem was the MOSFET in the TX/RX switch. Replacing this made it both transmit and receive properly again. On Buckden Pike it was back to how it should be - a nice run on 30m with 27 QSOs followed by 10 on 20m including Alabama. After 5 on 2m FM I tried 10m and managed 3 QSOs to North Macdeonia, Greece and South Carolina. With toes getting cold I didn’t stay to try for more.
A chilly Starbotton
Summit view with Fountains Fell G/NP-017, Pen-y-ghent G/NP-010, Ingleborough G/NP-005 and Whernside G/NP-004
The war memorial
Looking over to Great Whernside G/NP-008
EDIT: I forgot to say that I met a couple on the summit. They asked if I was doing SOTA. It turns out they are well known hill baggers (not radio hams) from Penrith who know Colwyn @MM0YCJ. I think the woman was called Jen. She’s the only woman who has climbed every marilyn in the UK.