Shorter day out

Old Reflector
1

On Thursday 8th August 2013 I had plans for three summits, with an aspiration to possibly add a fourth. As it was, I ran out of steam, energy, enjoyment, will to live and all that, and just ended up doing two.

It was a later than preferred start from Macclesfield as I had to drop Liam off at an activity at 10am. The navigation difficulties of the previous day continued to plague me as I made a meal out of finding my way to Rombalds Moor G/NP-028.

I was surprised to find an excellent stone flagged path down all the way from the car park to the trig point. I couldn’t remember whether this was the case on my last visit a few years ago, but do recall that there was a lot of bog-hopping in my first few activations of this one!

This, in contrast, was a breeze, and the heathery moorland was a very pleasant place to be. Of course, the parking area is within 20m vertically of the summit, so technically in the activation zone, so there is no need to walk all the way to the trig point. But I was here for a walk as well as amateur radio, so trig point it was for me!

Contacts were hard to come by on 12m. In fact all three that I did get - two on CW and one on SSB - were all local groundwave. In order to qualify the summit, I had to get a contact on 2m FM with the handie. My Mini Palm Paddle had stopped working completely, and all my attempts to fix it failed - miserably. Not wanting to do any CW-less activations, I set the FT-817 to Mic keyer mode and used the Up/Down buttons on my FT-817 fist mike to send CW. I could only do this with my thumbs at 12wpm, but it was not necessary for chasers to QRS as I could still read at my usual speed!

What with the late start from Macc, and my pathetic road navigation, time was already cracking on. The next intended summit was Sharp Haw G/NP-029 - and it was.

Tom M1EYP

2

Although the second of three intended summits on Thursday 8th August 2013 was Sharp Haw G/NP-029, I managed to drive right past the turning for it. I realised this as I saw the memorial cross and obelisk on the hill to my right, identifying it as Cracoe Fell G/NP-032. Oh well, I thought, might as well change the order.

But without the appropriate research, detailed maps or competent navigator, I couldn’t find the parking spot anywhere. Later, Jimmy confirmed I was on the right road, but I couldn’t find anything that I recognised from our activation a few years previously.

Instead, I returned to Sharp Haw G/NP-029, this time making the turning onto Bog Lane. There is parking for several cars at a sharp corner of this road, and from there an access road and then a good grassy path leads all the way to the pointy distinctive summit. Before setting off, I had half my flask of lentil & bacon soup, saving the rest for later.

Despite recalling this as an easy with even with two very young children years ago, I was finding this hard work today. It was probably a combination of my fatigue from the previous day’s exertions, and my increasing lack of spirit and motivation today! I edited my Cracoe Fell G/NP-032 alert to Easington Fell G/SP-012 for the next summit.

In QSO with Mick M0MDA from the summit, this was met with disappointment, as this was a summit still needed on 24MHz for him. I was in fact now deciding not to do a third summit at all. I really had run out of time, energy and motivation!

24MHz had all but died for the day, so I was grateful to at least get any contacts on that band for the SOTA 12m Challenge multiplier. But the activation required use of 2m FM in order to get qualified, and get me off home. After descent, I polished off the rest of my flask of soup, then got driving.

As I approached Macclesfield, I had a quick QSO with Jimmy M0HGY - who initially managed a syllable before going suddenly off air. It turned out he had connected the FT-897 to a SLAB which had been trickle charging from the power supply, instead of to said power supply. One syllable at 50 watts later - and the death of an in-line glass fuse. Oh well, that’s why we put them there I guess! Anyway, Jimmy spotted his mistake and reconnected to the PSU so we could chat. Finally, I called in at Richard G3CWI’s to buy a new Mini Palm Paddle, as mine was old, bashed, mutli-repaired and increasingly intermittent. I also picked up a Palm Cube while I was at it - so a new toy to play with from the hills now!

Tom M1EYP

3

Photos etc for these two activations are on my website at http://tomread.co.uk (or http://sotasummits.co.uk ). Navigate via the SOTA index.

Or surf directly into:

http://tomread.co.uk/rombalds.htm
http://tomread.co.uk/sharphaw.htm

Tom M1EYP