I had to make a booking and stay in a hotel before the end of Jan 2025 or my rewards level status would drop down on Hotels.com and I also had a big sack of “rewards cash” to spend. At the same time the price of alcohol is subject to minium pricing in Scotland which makes it substantially cheaper in England. So the plan emerged of drive down to the nearest UK supermarkets selling booze near some summits that I could do in the Winter and stay in a hotel to use the reward money.
The saving on buying sufficient booze (and it’s not all going to be drunk over Christmas) would pay for the fuel, the rewards covered all but £1.93 of the hotel costs. All that was left was the cost of evening meals and some beer and at £5.50/pint I didn’t drink too much (Estrella Damm which is very nice so not drinking it to oblivion is hard!)
One bugbear, the wind. It was to be windy on Sunday and damn windy (aka gales) on Monday but no rain. I took the extra strong pole with me.
Ros Hill G/SB-009
I was staying in Rothbury and this is on the way. Oh boy it’s a severely challenging being a massive 530m walk and an ascent of 64m! It took about 10mins to get to the top. In fact it took longer to swap trousers to some I could get muddy and put on some boots. Up to the top and of course the strong pole was in the car so I used the less strong one which worked fine. I used the bench to support the pole and out with the 40/30/20 trapped EFHW, 49:1 and a counterpoise and off I went. I managed to slip on a wet and slimy rock and landed on my back and elbow. Oh did I swear and it hurt like a real “illegitimate person”. I was fine the next day, no bruises.
I was hoping to work lots of contest stations in the ARRL 10m contest but it was hard work. Many stations were 59+++ but they couldn’t hear me. Last time I used my delta loop and it works much better than the inverted 7 strung EFHW. I managed 12 on 10m at the start and end of the activation. I haven’t done much SSB so I had a bash on 20m and 40m and then CW on 30m. The wind was roaring and it looked like it was going to rain any moment but I stayed dry. The bench is behind the wall which saved me from the wind.
Station down, back to the car, boots off, pants swapped and off to the hotel. Easy.
Shillhope Law G/SB-006
I did this in Nov 2021 and the WX was rubbish with lots of wind driven rain that soaked me then the wind dried me. The route was rubbish as the stream to cross was in spate and the bracken was armpit height. So this time I did it up the track from Shillmoor. The road to Shillmoor is really bad, lots of potholes with repairs and potholes in the repairs. Also the roads were covered in mud and it was drizzling. My car looks like it has been buried in the mud and dug out now with all the road dirt.
I was hoping to park at Shillmoor Farm but there is nowhere suitable without asking but there is a good piece of hard standing about 500m back across the bridge to park. This is easy, up the track and you cannot get lost. Well I followed an animal track not the real track and had to make a detour to meet up with it. Idiot. It’s 3.2km and 310m ascent, so about 1 Scald Law’s worth of climbing. The wind was howling and it was showering for 5mins on 15mins off. I got damp then the wind blew me dry. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s good walking with a few small boggy bits easily avoided. Finally at the top I collapsed into the shelter around the trig to escape the wind.
Pole (strong one still in the car) was wedged into the shelter stones and the 40/30/20m EFHW run out. I started on 10m CW and worked 4 quite easily and then it was quiet. So still in the SSB mood I tried 40m. Good signals from most people and good reports which was nice. Of course 40m SSB meant there was an idiot who ignored directed calls. His operating is often poor, calling when he can’t hear me or ignoring directed calls. Anyway I told him he wasn’t going in the log and got a sarcastic reply but I managed to work the station whose partial call I had. Now I am not identifying this station and hopefully he wont be stupid enough to out himself. But you never know with fools. After a massive 30mins on the air and after 40 had dried up I considered another band or back to the car. It was so horrible in the wind it was back to the car and I had another hill to activate.
Tosson Hill G/SB-007
This is about 25mins drive from Shillmoor. It wasn’t meant to rain but it did. Then stopped when I got to the car park. I wanted to check out the new path because the old one was like some kind of medieval torture it was so boggy and uneven. I’ve done this before and come back using a head-torch. I checked I had the torch and it worked. I checked I had a wind-up backup torch.
Then I was off. Everywhere looked different and I realised a lot of the forest had suffered from Storm Arwen so there’s lots of cleared areas. Any way the path was the footpath through woods and there are plenty of uprooted and fallen trees. Then along the good forest tracks so I made good time. Finally at where I thought there was a new path there was just the old path. I’d seen the new path in pictures so I checked the GPS… yes in the right place. So along the torture track in now even stronger winds. There’s a wee bit of climbing, then the gate and the sign saying the new path needs our feet on it. I continued on the torture path till suddenly there was the new path. Yes it’s much better but was squishy in places, poor drainage. Then it stops for about 100m back to the old path then the new path continues up right to the trig and wind shelter. It is a significant improvement and there is a lot more path work about to take place, lots of stone paving slabs have been lifted in for deployment.
Pole wedged in the shelter stones again and the 40/30/20m EFHW strung out. I tried a change and didn’t deploy a counterpoise, just the 4m RG58 feeder. The KX2 end has a split ferrite clamp with about 3 turns of feeder in it. The KX2 tuned it up on 10m without issue and I managed to work 6 US stations on 10m CW. It started being quite wet, a few minutes of heavy wind blown drizzle then just wild wind. It took just 1hr10 to get to the trig, 10mins to setup 20mins on air. I had 6 QSOs. At one point the wind pulled the radiator out of the 49:1 and I could hear Roger KF9D on the unun and the bit of RG58 running up the pole. 10m seemed quite good. 
The WX looked like it would not only be windy but wet. And dark. So I pulled down the station, adjusted my clothes, forgot to take any photos and struck out for home. It drizzled continuously for 3/4 of the return trip.
It’s 4.3km and 238m ascent. It took 1hr10 up and still took 1hr to get back to the car. Though I stopped for 2 comfort breaks and Toffee Crisp on the way back. Gordon Bennett it was wild at times. I needed the head torch for the last 20mins of the walk
No uniques as I have done these boys before. But 1, 2+3 and 1 points, 3 challenge multipliers and 15 unique challenge calls. I must be mad to have been up hills in the wind though.
Today, I hit the supermarkets and stocked up. We had a small disaster, loading the car I managed to drop a bottle of red Vermouth. It fell to the floor in slow motion and smashed. “Oh dear” I said. I had to buy another and then carefully clear up all the glass. I’d have cleared the glass anyway but it was essential as I had to reverse out of my parking space over where the glass was.
On the way back North the A1 was closed Southbound. I drove past the remains of a crash that had closed the road. There was a Golf with no tailgate that looked like it had bounced of the Armco, a big (BIG) tractor with animal trailer parked up and a Transit Van with most of the driver’s cab crushed to about 30-40% of the normal size. The news sources say no deaths and the accident was reported at 7.50am, I drove past at 12.15pm and there were no fire engines or ambulances just the police measuring up and the Transit being recovered. I got home and the A1 was still closed at 4.50pm. A major England/Scotland road closed for 9 hours says how bad this was. Somebody is not going to have a good Christmas, I hope everyone is OK but I felt quite a shiver as I drove past. So can we all take a little more care on the roads please.
Pictures to follow.
