I had set the alarm for 0500 yesterday for my trip up to the Lake District. However some idiot decided to start letting off fireworks at 0400, so with a headache I decided to get up and have an early start. The journey was uneventful, but I must admit I nearly swapped summits to do Helvellyn instead to avoid the horrible drive round to Wasdale. I parked opposite the campsite about 1km west of the Wasdale hotel & headed up what I presume is called the “tourist route”. After gaining about 300m height you can jump over a wall and follow a ridge of sorts which is much more satisfying than the path.
On the summit there was hardly a breath of wind, the sun was more out than in and it was just above freezing. Visibility was less than 2km due to hazy conditions, there was quite a bit of fog/mist trapped in the valleys with the high pressure. Due to the early hour, there wasnt many people about so I set up the HF dipole & phoned Mick 2E0HJD to tell him I was on 80m (I had to walk around to get a lock on Orange as the phone kept finding Irish networks). A quick whistle on 3.666 to check swr brought a call from John GW4BVE! I used 80, 60 & 40 metres, I did look on 20m but it was full of Ukraine contest stations. I had the 2m beam with me hoping for a tropo lift but when I scanned around on the car radio, nothing out of the ordinary was heard. After packing up the HF antenna the summit was filling up fast with walkers making the most of the good wx. I assembled the 3 ele "stubby" end of the SB5 beam and using it hand held I scanned around for the anticipated tropo lift. Unfortunately no dx was heard so I didnt put the beam on the mast. I heard Dave G0AOD on CE-002 but we`d worked on HF, I also heard Robin GM7PKT/P on CS-010 so I worked him on the hand held beam before packing up.
67 stations logged, 80m - 26, 60m - 8, 40m - 32, 2m - 1.
The day was finished off by walking accross to my favorite English summit - Bow Fell & back. Pity about the crowds - I couldn`t hide the rucksack so had to carry it with me:-(
Thanks to all who called - Steve G1INK.