Wow! What a weekend! I’m tired and baked but happy! 
To kick off the weekend I saw Kenton Cool at Lancaster, he was giving a presentation about the history of Everest expeditions.
The talk was very entertaining and informative, I’d definitely recommend it.
I managed a few hours in bed at home before my alarm went off ridiculously early on the Saturday morning. My first target was St Sunday Crag G/LD-010. I’d already done my daily step target before 9am, and I hadn’t even reached my first summit!
I did 20m CW with my trusty home built MTR-5B. I hadn’t done much Morse for a while and the pile up was a little unruly, which was a baptism of fire. Nevertheless, I’d got more than enough contacts in my log, so it was time to move on to the next summit.
Operating on St Sunday Crag, looking towards Helvellyn G/LD-003.
Fairfield always looks way harder to me than it actually is, before long I was on the summit of G/LD-007.
I did 15m on Fairfield and had a reasonable log but it was clear than the higher bands weren’t producing anything spectacular. I did manage to qualify quite quickly and the lure of a nice cold drink in Ambleside was strong, so I planned to get my last summit over and done with ahead of schedule.
I felt hungry by the time I’d reached the tarn, so I stopped and ate my sandwiches before tackling Seat Sandal G/LD-022.
Kevin MW0KXN had reached out to me a couple of days before asking if I minded if he activated Seat Sandal too, I replied saying that I didn’t mind at all, I was just after the qualification.
I reached the summit and instantly saw Kevin and his wife, it turned out that we had arrived at pretty much the same time.
Kevin started activating on 2m, so I set up my MTR-5B for 15m. 15m wasn’t lively at all, so I switched to 17m. 17m wasn’t much better, so I went down to 20m. I’m not sure if the chasers were all having lunch, but QSOs weren’t exactly there by the bucket full. Again, my log book had more than enough QSOs in it, so I packed up with the idea of making it to Ambleside before the cafés shut. I said goodbye to Kevin and that I hoped to see him later at the pub.
Kevin’s sun shelter and flowerpot antenna in the distance on G/LD-022
The walk back to the car in Grasmere was a hot trudge, and the water I’d stashed in the car for a ‘lay by shower’ was nearly as warm as that from my shower at home! It was nice to get the sticky sun cream off and feel a bit fresher. I made it to the cafe in Ambleside and had an iced coffee with a side of caramel shortbread. 
I did took part in sone retail therapy in Ambleside before heading to the pub in Windermere. The traffic was a little bit heavy due to the Great Northern Swim event taking part in the lake, but it wasn’t too bad. The swim event seemed to well organised with plenty of signage asking people not to park on the road, which seems to have been heeded.
I really enjoyed my time at the pub and stayed far too late! I’d said my goodbyes once and then another conversation started! The food was good and I’d like to publicly thank Mark M0NOM for liasing with the venue and sorting stuff out behind the scenes.
I had thought about doing Blencathra today but I’d stayed at the pub too long for that. I wasn’t drinking but I had an hour’s drive to get back home. (I’d figured it was much cheaper for less than a tenner’s worth of Diesel than to stay overnight in the Lakes).
Looking at SOTLAS, I decided that Lambrigg Fell G/LD-046 would be a good target for today. The drive is 35 minutes from home and would be a unique summit for me. I parked my car at the quarry and crossed the main road, walking through the wind farm. I read G3CWIs notes about Lambrigg Fell and he details being bitten by an insect - within a few minutes I was being investigated as lunch! Thankfully I managed to swat all of the clegs before any of them managed to get their teeth into me!
I’d taken along my FT817, as I’d planned to use that on Blencathra on 12m. I’d also taken a home brew rig that I’d built a few weeks ago and not yet tested on air.
I started with the home brew rig and was quite surprised when I actually started working people with it! The rig puts out about 2 watts on 20m from a single BS170 FET. The direct conversion receiver is separate and based on the Sudden by G3RJV. The receiver is the ubiquitous SA612/LM386 circuit. I added an op amp filter to try to peak the audio a little.
I was pleased to hear Kevin M(W)0KXN/P calling me at one stage, so I attempted to slow the keyer speed down. I got a bit lost in the menu - I’d re-purposed a Ham Gadgets RockMite keyer - and I’m not used to it. I did eventually get the speed down to 14wpm but Kevin didn’t respond to my calls. I worked a few chasers at 14 wpm hoping that Kevin would call again, and he did! The summit to summit with Kevin on G/LD-037 was the QSO of the weekend for me. Apparently Kevin had been inspired to take up Morse after learning about my rigs and activations. A really confident and pleasing contact, especially with a home brew rig!
A great way to end an awesome weekend, already looking forward to the next one.
Colin.
