Alex and I took some time out from DIY on this Bank Holiday Monday to visit a local SOTA summit, Whitbarrow Scar. It is one of the outlying fells of the Lake District and is a Nature Reserve. On our ascent we encountered some very friendly cows and calves.
There were also friendly cattle on the top, one of which Alex named the ‘Koala Cow’. There were plenty of ‘nice’ insects such as bumble bees and butterflys enjoying the summer weather.
Band conditions were pretty terrible - which I was helpfully informed about by a chaser on 20m - it is always good to know that there is a chance it isn’t summit brain when you check the antenna connection for the umpteenth time. I moved from 20m to 80m then 40m and 2m local. At the end I threw up my new high-HF quadbander and managed the first 17m QSO from the summit.
Great to have a chat with Rob @G4RQJ who I’ve not spoken to for a while and got me into this crazy game.
Tomorrow the Morecambe Bay Amateur Radio Society is having a SOTA evening on Gummer’s How (which you get great views of from Whitbarrow) - it’ll be kicking off around 19:00 UTC so we would appreciate the contacts.
I’ll leave you with a couple more photos.
Thanks to all the dedicated chasers, 73. Mark. M0NOM
Thanks Andy, appreciate the comment. To be fair Alex did take quite a few of these photos. Maybe we should get a decent camera, but it will be another thing to carry. I have dusted off the camcorder and plan to give that a whirl at some point.
Nice photos Mark. Love the coos! Parking spot looks familiar but I’m sure there were a lot more trees about when Gerald and I were there a few years ago?
We did the same route a year or so back; a nice day apart form the wind. This was so strong that standing still on the ridge was not really an option. Even on the lee side conditions were difficult and I no longer remember how many times the pole (only 5m) blew down. Eventually it stayed up long enough for me to peg one end of the dipole straight into the wind which held it stable for the rest of the activation. Good training for the recent visit to the Hebrides
73,
Rod
PS, don’t remember any cows on that one.
One of my favourite wee hills. I had similar WX to you but there was still lots of snow on the Northern Fells. Must do it again with the uWave stuff. Pics are good.
Well, we had a good spell of weather here in the Lakes but it has finally broken this morning! The Morecambe Bay Amateur Radio Society SOTA evening (with several members of the Furness Amateur Radio Society joining us) was a fun evening but it was sure windy! Unusually from the East which meant that views were good on the leeward side looking down on the Lake, but there wasn’t a great deal of getting out of it. Still we had some good contacts on 20m and I think it may just have encouraged a couple of members to take the plunge!
WX last night was impressive…non-stop torrential rain for 4hrs. You get less water in a shower! And the lightening was serious, so close it was flash and before you could count the thunder clap came. Took the TV stations off air for a while, I had to do without my fix of Vince Legaf
