GM/SS-244, Belling Hill: 17th September 2016

A brief report for a little hill we did on our way back from Loch Lomond. It was a lovely day as we left the holiday cottage. The traffic round Glasgow and Edinburgh was heavy and we arrived at the parking spot at NT644114 rather later than planned.

We packed up our lunch and radios into the rucksacks and set off up the forest track, a very gentle ascent. We followed the track when it took a sharp left and started looking for a ride on the right. This was heathery and led us towards a rough area of felled trees and low level heather/grass which was above the 350m contour of this hill whose nominal height is 354m. It wasn’t ideal for stringing out the HF antenna, but looked as good as we were going to find. The VHF antenna was up first and we started off with two S2Ses: Paul GM0BKC on Ben Gulabin CS-077 followed by a difficult (not surprising given the distance) contact with Robin GM7PKT on WS-003. Caroline managed two more 2m FM contacts to qualify but that was all. After Martyn had a good run of 14 contacts (including an S2S with John GM4YSS on NS-001 Sgurr Mor), Caroline tried 7MHz, but conditions didn’t seem good and she got just 7 contacts. The weather was the best we had had all week, but with nearly 300 miles still to drive home we didn’t have time to stay longer, so packed up and retraced our steps.


3 Likes

Nice little summit. When I activated this one in 2006 (was it that long ago?) access to the summit was barred by a wall of trees and forestry brash but it was still possible to get well into the activation zone which you do very quickly after walking up from the road. Subsequent forestry work has opened up access. Your photos are reminiscent.
Jim