Congratulations...

…to Aage LA1ENA who is currently activating Winter Hill G/SP-010. This means that he has activated all 16 summits in the G/SP region. Of course, quite a few people have done that, but not many that have made several flights from Norway to do so!

Halvard LA1DNA was telling me yesterday that he is still short of Black Hill G/SP-002 for the set, as when Kjell LA1KHA and Aage LA1ENA did it last year, the wx was horrible, and he elected to sit out the expedition and provide a 2m FM QSO to the summit team from the inside of the car. If only we could all be as sensible!

It was an absolute pleasure to join Aage and Halvard on Freeholds Top G/SP-011 and Hail Storm Hill G/SP-009 yesterday, as well as my longtime walking buddies (aka sons) Jimmy 2E0EYP and Liam. Particularly impressive was Aage’s addition to his pack for the second summit - a four-pack of Fosters, most of which had been consumed by the time we returned to the cars by torchlight.

Congratulations Aage!

Tom M1EYP

In reply to M1EYP:

Most impressive to complete a region when it’s as far from home as SP is to LA amateurs. Respect!

Having a four pack of Fosters ready to celebrate shows a devotion to planning that I don’t. Deep respect!

:slight_smile:

Andy
MM0FMF

“Devotion to planning”:

http://tomread.co.uk/corndon.htm

In reply to M1EYP:

Brilliant work Aage! Halvard will no doubt complete next year. What happened to Kjell?

73

Richard
G3CWI

Hi Richard,

Kjell got married in Columbia this year and has travelled to Columbia 5 times this year. His wife is now living with Kjell in Norway. Kjell could not come to the UK because he had already taken enough time off work this year and he wanted to stay with his wife.

Jimmy 2E0EYP

Congratulations to Aage on a great achievment. Also, a big thanks to Halvard, for an S2S contact from the elusive G/SP-006 White Hill on both the 80m and 2m bands.

Thanks to Halvards activation, it finally allowed me to complete S2S with all of the South Pennine summits.

Great to meet both Aage and Halvard at the Rishworth QRP Rally on Saturday.

73 Mike
2E0YYY

In reply to 2E0YYY:

it finally allowed me to complete S2S with all of the South Pennine summits.

Me and Jimmy did that all in the space of an hour and a half on 23rd April 2006! What kept you?

Joking aside, well done on achieving this Mickey. Presumably you will now turn your attention to activating the full set as well? (And will you demand of yourself at least one/four* S2S QSOs in the activation?).

Pity you missed out on Raw Head G/SP-016; mind you, you can still do it as part of the HOTA Award.

Tom M1EYP

In reply to M1EYP:

Pity you missed out on Raw Head G/SP-016; mind you, you can still do
it as part of the HOTA Award.

Tom M1EYP

Think you mean HEMA award Tom (Humps Excluding Marilyns.)? http://www.summits.org.uk
HOTA (Hills on the Air) is any hill over 100m see http://www.hillsontheair.org.uk - embrionic at the moment.

Roger G4OWG

In reply to M1EYP:

it finally allowed me to complete S2S with all of the South Pennine
summits.

Me and Jimmy did that all in the space of an hour and a half on 23rd
April 2006! What kept you?

Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that day, I was operating from Boulsworth hill G-SP-008, which is actually the last time I was on that summit! It was quite a feat to pull off, I’m surprised it all worked out OK in the end.

Nice to meet Aage and Halvard at Rishworth again, I ended up with a sore throat after talking to so many people (including quite a few SOTA people)!

73
Colin
M0CGH

In reply to M1EYP:

In reply to 2E0YYY:

it finally allowed me to complete S2S with all of the South Pennine
summits.

Me and Jimmy did that all in the space of an hour and a half on 23rd
April 2006! What kept you?

Joking aside, well done on achieving this Mickey. Presumably you will
now turn your attention to activating the full set as well? (And will
you demand of yourself at least one/four* S2S QSOs in the
activation?).

Nope, I’m concentrating on making S2S with GW, which is proving somewhat challenging to say the least.

I’ve made exactly 200 S2S with GW of which 79 are unique.

Pity you missed out on Raw Head G/SP-016;

Why? Raw Head is not a Marilyn, therefore, fails to comply with SOTA rules. Any previous activation of Raw Head in SOTA terms is utterly meaningless, otherwise the MT wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of deleteing it.

73 Mike
2E0YYY

In reply to 2E0YYY:

Raw Head was a very pleasnt bimble. Zero effort required to get to the top, something like 10mins of gentle ambling. The view was pretty and it was easy to bag a shedload of QSOs using simple 2m gear. ODX for me was an FT-817 into an HB9CV on the trig point down to Don G0RQL using 2m SSB.

It was valid when it was valid! Only when someone got a more accurate tape measure out did it appear that the col was higher than thought and so Raw Head was demoted.

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to 2E0YYY:
Any previous activation of Raw Head in SOTA terms is utterly meaningless, otherwise the MT wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of deleteing it.

Hi Mike.The points still count if you activated it before it was deleted.As Andy says it was a nice hill its a pity it no longer qualify`s 73 Geoff

In reply to MM0FMF:

Yeah, I note it’s only 227m ASL. I wonder how much short it’s prominence is?

Perhaps Jim would let me know if he gets a chance?

BTW, off to the Llandudno Rally this weekended. May well give VHF a go :wink:

Subject to the WX and Rangers, of course.

73 Mike
2E0YYY

In reply to G6MZX:

Hi Geoff,

Yeah, Tubby activated it as a HuMP back in January, and he said it was very nice summit.

It’s only a short drive from my QTH, I may well activate it next week.

73 Mike
2E0YYY

BTW, my apologies for the thread hijack.

In reply to 2E0YYY:
From RSGB news :-

‘Members of the Worked All Britain Awards Group and the British Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society will be operating GB0RME from Great Ormes Head on 27 October. Activity will be mostly on 40m and 80m. The WAB square is SH78 and the Lighthouse reference is A5134X. The summit will not be valid for SOTA as this activation does not fulfil their criteria. Full details of GB0RME are on QRZ.com.’

Roger G4OWG

In reply to G4OWG:

Hi Roger,

Thanks for the info.

I’ll more than likely be staying there for 3 days and maybe try to activate it on Friday.

With the CQ World-Wide SSB DX contest this coming weekend, SSB space will be at a huge premium… Good luck to the SSB activators :frowning:

73 Mike
2E0YYY

OK, the actual activation report is perhaps the best way to “unhijack” this thread hi!

We always enjoy meeting up with our Norwegian friends when the come over every October, and Jimmy 2E0EYP had been busy planning and communicating with Halvard LA1DNA and Aage LA1ENA for some time. The upshot was that we would return to a couple of G/SP summits not visited by us for a number of years.

Due to the later alert timings posted by Aage and Halvard, as a result of their attendance at the Rishworth G-QRP event on the Saturday morning, only an 8am egt-up was required on Saturday 20th October 2012. Jimmy, Liam and myself set off north, and pulled in at Reddish Tesco for a cooked breakfast.

Forty minutes or so later, we were in the parking spot on the A681 Bacup to Todmorden road. Shortly after, Aage and Halvard pulled in in their red hire car, and the walking could commence. This route to Freeholds Top G/SP-011 is not the shortest, but it is certainly the easiest, for it avoids any steep climbs and all the bog.

We walked down the track for quite some distance before branching right for the summit. Liam discussed cars with Halvard for most of the walk!

On arrival at the summit, Jimmy set up for 2m FM and made 19 contacts. Halvard went for 80m SSB, but struggled, so went on a combination of 40m SSB and 2m FM instead. Aage had a problem with his rig on 20m, but made 30m contacts without difficulty. I took the MM15 and went on 21MHz CW, making 18 contacts, the highlights of which were W, VE, EA6 and 4O. Quite why there was such a big pile-up for 4O4A I am not quite sure, but it was very satisfying to break it first call! Soup of the day was lamb & vegetable.

Time was marching on, and we were running short of daylight hours - not that this issue seemed to remotely concern the Norwegians! We drove back through Bacup with Halvard and Aage following behind. Jimmy directed me through the village of Turn, but instead of parking in the village like last time, we drove up the road further uphill, and parked on the verge opposite Fecit Farm. All the hang gliders were parked on this verge, so we figured that it was in order.

We crossed the road to enter the PROW at SD818174. Our path soon merged with the Rossendale Way route as it weaved between the hillocks and wind farms thereon. Eventually we came to a sort of gateway marked by two tall stone pillars, and we knew that from here to the summit was plain wet and dirty!

It seemed to take longer than I recalled to get from here to the summit. The true summit of Hail Storm Hill G/SP-009 is pretty vague on a featureless boggy plateau, but it is marked by a small cairn, and Jimmy, again, located it seemingly without difficulty.

Halvard beat Jimmy onto 2m FM and worked a long line of stations, forcing Jimmy to bide his time and wait patiently. In the meantime, Aage activated on 30m CW, and I repeated mt 15m CW of earlier. In my 9 contacts, only two were not into North America. Eventually, Jimmy got onto 2m FM and made 5 QSOs.

It was now rapidly getting dark, so we packed up quickly and donned headtorches. Navigating off the plateau and finding the stone pillars was difficult and a little nerve-racking, but I got there by following where Jimmy’s light was as he, Aage and Halvard waited for Liam and I.

Once on the track it was plain sailing down to the cars, by which time Aage was well into his third can of lager for the activation! This did not stop us from heading to the nearest pub and enjoying some Jennings bitter before the drive home.

Many thanks to Aage and Halvard for meeting up with us again for another great day in the hills.

Tom M1EYP