A last minute trip in the moho to Mow Cop this weekend turned into a chasing bonanza. Mow Cop is an unusual village that is atop a hill just over 1000ft high. Although it is locally prominent, it’s not a SOTA. It may count for the Heffalumps award but I’m not sure. Either way it’s a fantastic place for VHF and up. The campsite I selected was perfectly located for radio in most directions likely to be good for SOTA; and so it turned out. I did have a “proper” antenna with me but I decided to use a held-held with its rubber duck to avoid overload from the many transmitters up there. This tactic worked well as did careful planning of walks with my wife that took full advantage of the terrain. Those preparations and fine settled weather meant that a surprising number of 2m FM activators were logged. Fortunately, my wife liked Mow Cop (and it’s only a 30 minute drive from us) so I suspect we will be back. 2m was really buzzing!
I was always up there in my SWL days, it was a great spot to pull in the FM broadcast pirate radio stations from Birmingham and Dublin.
It depends on what the rules are for the AZ if it is viable for the Hummits or not. It would be quite a feat to operate from the highest point.
I think that would be the top of the Old Man of Mow, which has several recorded climbing routes to the top of it but climbing is now forbidden as it slowly disintegrates.
You think wrong. The Old Man of Mow sits at the lower edge of a quarry and is quite a lot lower than the summit. It’s fenced off but surprisingly there was not a “no climbing” sign visible. The castle (folly) sits at the highest point.
One of those illusions, I guess. From the to of the Cop it looks higher!
Yeah, I got kicked off by a National Trust ranger about 8 years ago. Wouldn’t mind, I was only using a Wouxun and MFD, just above the car park.
Amazed that a Wouxun with a proper antenna could hear anything up there. My FT-70D was suffering a bit even on its rubber duck!
When I activated it for HEMA I did it from the trig point having estimated that the drop between that and the Old Man of Mow was <25m, and assuming that scheme would have an AZ rule that copied that of SOTA. I was sure that the folly was lower than both these points.
[M1EYP goes into another browser window and starts doing some research…]
[M1EYP returns to SOTAwatch…]
No, you’re wrong Richard @G3CWI. The top of the Old Man of Mow is about 26m higher than the base of the folly, and about 2m higher than the base of the trig point. Activating from the castle above the car park would be invalid for HEMA (I think) as it is 26m below the true summit to start with, but then there is a further small drop between that and the trig point / Old Man on the other side of the road - meaning that the folly / area above the car park is not within the activation zone.
The base of the folly sits at 311m ASL, while the top of the Old Man of Mow is at 337m ASL. I wonder how many logged HEMA activations of Mow Cop are flawed?
Is the old man of Mow the fellow who inspired the children’s song “One man went to Mow”?
There was a lot of pager break through. No problems with the 857.
3 weeks ago, I worked a HEMA to SOTA from the trig point with GW7HEM/P up on GW/SW-005, Fan Fawr, using the the Wouxun. Good HF site too, also logged a VK3 and 2 VK6 on 20m short path.
I suffered a fair bit of pager breakthrough on Bardon Hill G/CE-004 yesterday Mike while activating with a handheld.
Coincidentally, I worked GW7HEM/P earlier today S2S with a handheld - though he was a lot closer on Y Garn GW/NW-004. It did work into the Brecon Beacons though - Viki MW6BWA/P on GW/SW-007 and Allan GW4VPX/P who was descending GW/SW-003.
Nice work on the VK3 and VK6s. I got a VK2 S2S, a VK4 and a ZL the other morning on 30m - my first near-antipode DX for a good while, but still exhilarating!
Strange, it really doesn’t appear like that up there. I stand corrected (apologies to Brian) but I will now have to return to see if I can figure it out.
Even the National Trust seem to have it wrong Alderley Edge and Cheshire Countryside | National Trust
The Hill Bagging site suggests: …the ground by the trig is c.1.5m higher than the rocks at the folly, but the Old Man is 1.5m higher still
Info I researched earlier had Old Man 337m, trig point 335m, folly 311m. But in the case of disagreement between sources, I too would trust Hill bagging site.
NT site data is way off - it has the summit as 18 higher than it is.