The Craven pair Sunday 24 May

Old Reflector
1

With a good weather forecast for Sunday I decided to activate something but didn`t want to spend hours driving in the good weather. Cracoe Fell & Sharp Haw were decided upon as my non ham friend decided he wanted to come despite having a bad back.

I arrived at the parking spot just South of Rylstone hoping there would be a space - no problem it was empty. We walked to the summit via Rylstone Cross, this took 2 hours as my friend set a slow pace chewing on diclorfenac tablets. I set up the HF dipole in the rocks about 150m East of the monument. Opening on 40m brought a pleasing run of 47 contacts. 4m, 20m, 60m & 80m were used as well with G4BLH & G0VOF following me around the bands. After 78 contacts logged I packed up & headed off the summit. Just as we started walking it was nice to bump into Chris 2E0FSR with his son just arriving to activate on 2m. The descent took an hour as my friends pain killers had kicked in. I still reckon it would be quicker to tackle this summit via Thorpe Fell. Wx was clear blue sky with around 13C.

A short drive South and we arrived at the parking spot for Sharp Haw. We followed the obvious track to the summit. On arrival it took me ages to find somewhere to set up the 80m dipole so as not to inconvenience other walkers - not easy on this small “pointy” summit. By now the wx had warmed up to about 17C (mmmmm). The same combination of bands as Cracoe Fell were used to produce 55 contacts. At one stage I was forced off my 20m frequency by a very loud JA station. At the end of the activation I thought if he was still there I`d try & work him. The JA had gone but I did manage to work BD1TCC in Peking.
(not Beijing as he pointed out)

A very pleasant meal of Haddock, chips, mushy peas & a pot of tea was “eaten in” at Kelbrook fisheries - highly recommended.
Note for Geoff G6MZX - we did call round, and parked behind your land rover next to 4 little tractors. I rang the back bell & shouted you but you must have nipped out. The back door was open - but we were wary of witches :wink:

133 contacts.
4m - 11
20m - 16
40m - 67
60m - 13
80m - 26
Distace driven 156 miles.
Carbon footprint 19.5 kg CO2

73 G1INK.

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In reply to G1INK:

Was nice to see you again Steve and the weather was good to us. Thankfully you operated HF and I operated VHF from NP-032 Cracoe Fell as I was afraid you would have cleaned up and left me struggling to qualify the summit.

Apologies to Roger G4OWG as he had the headphones on with quite a bit of volume listening to a station on SSB and I called S2S and blew the wax out of his ears! The FT-817ND does have quality audio on SSB.

21 stations worked including S2S contacts with

2E0VMF/P Mike on NP-005 Ingleborough
M1AVV/P Simon on SP-003 Wards Stone
G0OXV/P Keith on NP-002 Mickle Fell

73 Chris 2E0FSR

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In reply to G1INK:
Nice report. All the elements but concise. I will try to learn from this!

Thanks for calling me. It was a real thrill to bag a summit on 4m FM not much more than a mile from my home near Scarborough and I haven’t worked you since WS1. (IC-E90 / 3W to vertical centre-fed dipole hung from a tree on Seamer Beacon - 189m ASL - 1mile W of Scarbro).
Caine M6MOF caught our QSO: - YouTube Thanks Caine.

Though I haven’t tried Cracoe, from what I read on here, I tend to agree with you about routing via Thorpe Fell.

Fortunate that we don’t have to carry our footprints. HI.

All the best, John.

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In reply to DL0QW:

Hi Mario, thanks for the Hüggel. You were also a great signal. I use a Yaesu ft857 into an inverted vee dipole. The contact was near the end of my activation so the battery would be low voltage, so perhaps 40 - 50 watt output.
73 - Steve.

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In reply to G1INK:
Hi Steve I waited for you for a while and then went down the garden to where I have another radio shack in a summer house.I thought that if you were going to come you may call me on 145 fm and that was where I was listening.Sorry that I missed you but you do now know where we are.Don`t be afraid of the witch she only comes out at night.(My Wife)The nearest way up Cracoe Fell is up Fell road in Cracoe Village.Opposite the farm shop entrance.Its just steeper.All the best Geoff.