Dear SOTA colleagues,
in May, I have a meeting planned in London, and I plan to extend the business trip by a few days to visit family.
Activating something in a association where I’ve never been before is always appealing. Could anybody recommend me a summit near London which is easily reachable by public transport, with affordable fares starting in Wimbledon?
73 Jens, HB9EKO
Hi Jens, there aren’t many SOTA summits within easy reach of London via public transport.
This question came up before and I posted this answer for G/CE-005. I summarized the public transport connections in the second paragraph.
The journey time between Wimbledon station and Marylebone station is around 25 minutes.
73 Andy
Hi Jens,
I haven’t tried this myself, but if you have plenty of time and don’t mind a fairly long walk, you could consider G/SE-002, Leith Hill. I think the closest station is Holmwood (possibly closed on Sundays), but would be a reasonably easy journey from Wimbledon with a change at Epsom or maybe Dorking. Perhaps others might have tried this before. I could imagine that the walk would be a good 90-120 mins in each direction.
It is worth bearing in mind that Leith Hill can be quite a busy spot during weekends and holiday periods, and maybe not the best if you’re planning to just take a handheld for 2m, but you could possibly raise some interest on the reflector beforehand of course!
Edit: just had a quick look, and a return ticket from Wimbledon to Holmwood currently costs £12.10.
Hope you manage to find somewhere to activate from and good luck!
Matthew M0JSB
I think I wrote this up somewhere, if I can find it then I’ll add the link but the tldr is:
G/SE-005 - Get the train to Oxted and walk up.
We went up Chalkpit Lane and back down Titsey Hill (roads) but there are also public footpath alternatives.
(The 595 and 695 bus go also to the AZ but we didn’t see them).
G/SE-007 - The world famous Crowborough. Get the train to Crowborough (from London or from Oxted) and walk up the road to somewhere in the AZ.
We activated from the bench at the bus stop on the main road near the summit but there are more secluded locations around.
We did those two in a day easily and activated both on 2m, even though there weren’t many chasers on 2m.
Other options:
G/SE-002 - Get the train to Dorking then bus to Coldharbour (or Arbinger) then walk up. Buses seemed a bit irregular when I looked into it. Or get the train to Holmwood then a long walk. I haven’t tried this option.
G/SE-014 is about 2 miles from Lewes train station but it’s a bit far from London.
G/SE-010 and SE-011 are possible by getting the train to Glynde or Polegate but it’s quite a hike and again quite far from London.
Also a fine summit is ditching beacon G/SE-006
Which you can access via train to Hassocks and either a short Taxi or a fine walk up to the beacon via Jack and Jill windmills.
Like Lewis it is the best part of a hour out of London by train. But a fine peak, on the “South Downs”
I have nothing against the fine people and town of Crowborough. But as a SOTA destination it is probably my least liked summit after over 500 uniques visited.
It’s basically the middle of a town. Getting a secluded spot for a HF set up means the scrub land immediately north of the golf club. Which is very unpleasant.
If you can get lucky on a 2m handheld I suppose a town centre bench will suffice. I got nothing on 2m.
As I say, Crowborough itself seems a perfectly nice town. Just not very nice for SOTA.
Interaction with the golfers can be tricky. I visited the trig point but managed to get a spot in the AZ that was less intrusive to the ball whackers.
The rest of these summits are lovely.
Dear fellow activators,
thank you very much for all the hints. I’ll try to include at least one of the summits in my trip planning and will let you know ahead of time. Hope to hear you in early may.
73 Jens HB9EKO