Despite living less than 10 miles away from the Wrekin, G/WB-010, on the outskirts of Telford, for nearly 20 years, I’d never even been up it… not even without a backpack full of electronic junk radio equipment…

7th May 2013 put paid to that.

Taking the opportunity to park at the quite large car park at the intersection of Ercall Lane and Wellington Road, I checked I had all the equipment needed, put on the boots and made my way across the road to the bottom of the path.

It doesn’t look far, looking from the M54 as you drive past, but being rather unfit, it was quite a long way, zig zagging up to the ‘Halfway House’ cafe… ‘Halfway’? If only!

Route up the Wrekin

Once past it, its a little further until the path turns South West towards the summit.. Fantastic!

However, the top of the hill you can see from there is actually ‘Hell Gate’.. Once past there, you can see what looks like the summit… only, it’s not, it’s ‘Heavens Gate’

Once past there, you can actually see the summit.. yay! It was at this point I was nearly run over by a 4×4 carrying a paraglider up to the summit… Oh, for a lift!

Eventually, I made it to the top! and wandered across to the trig. However, being rather busy this day, I decided to set up the stuff just to the North of it, slightly off the top, still within the activation zone.

View from the ‘shack’	Looking down on a police helicopter!

Not a huge amount of calls with the 5W from the 817nd, dipole for 2M and the norcal doublet via a portable tuner for HF, but the following made it into the log:

There was a couple of people on 60m, but I wasn’t able to tune the 44′ doublet to get a reasonable SWR.

Once the calls had dried up, I packed it all up and made my way back down to the car, considerably easier than coming up!  Quite a way for a single point! None the less, an enjoyable time.

Callow Hill was the first SOTA Summit I activated in 2012, being VHF only with a handie, it was time to revisit the hill, with my FT817ND, coaxial colinear for 2M and a 44′ Norcal Doublet for HF.

Parking in the normal parking spot, it took a short while to stagger up the hill, eventually doubling back towards the tower on the peak

Flounders Folly on top of Callow Hill

In just over an hour, 31 QSOs were in the log using the 817ND and 5W, the majority on HF, including my first 2 QSOs into the USA from a SOTA summit.

Then it was time to pack up, and descend back to the car.. A process hindered somewhat by managing to tangle the wires of the doublet in some hawthorn bushes 🙁

11th January 2013 and it was time for a rather chilly activation on Titterstone Clee Hill. So with the 817ND, homebrew coaxial colinear and rather heavy 7Ah SLAB it was the short, if somewhat strenuous (well, for me, anyway!)  stumble up from the car park to the top of the hill.
Finding a rather convenient post midway between the trig point and the ATC buildings, still within the activation zone, to bungee the fishing pole to.. I was quickly set up, ready to go.

Titterstone Clee Trig Point

Activated between the Trig point and the ATC buildings

ATC Buildings

A purely VHF activation, saw the following in the log book:

Being rather cold by now, and the contacts having dried up, I packed up and staggered back down to the car.. Only about 15-20 minutes, thankfully 🙂

View towards Brown Clee Hill – Sheep running away!

I had wanted to get out and play radio earlier this sunny Sunday, but as usual, other stuff got in the way 🙁

So it wasn’t until after lunchtime (Not that I’d had any food!) I had the opportunity to do the short drive to High Vinnalls, just outside of Ludlow.

Following others’ hints, I parked at SO47431 which as others have pointed out, does have a 2.1M height restriction, but being in my car, that didn’t bother me!

The car park was quite busy, since it was a nice afternoon. I packed my stuff and started along the path out of the top of the car park and along the slowly rising unmetalled road.

About 3-400 yards along, the road splits into two

Just before the road splits in two.

If I had realised it at the time, there is a small short cut which veers off to the left.. I could have saved about a minute, and 50 yards of walking!

It can be seen directly ahead in this photo

What the heck, it was a nice day!

Just after you bear left at the junction, there is a path, to the right, that leads up the side of the hill. This is the way I went.

The path up the side of the hill

Now.. I realised it had been raining earlier in the week, but didn’t realise just how much!

There was a deep gully running down one side of the path, obviously from all the rain that had traveled down that way, and on the more level parts, it was incredibly muddy!

After about 500m slipping and sliding up the side of the hill, you manage to climb from around 270M ASL to 340M ASL and you end up at a junction with a wider track.

You double back on yourself at the top of the climb

You emerge from the trees at the top of the path on the right in this picture, and just about double back on yourself up the wider track, which leads up to the summit which is about another 250 yards ahead.

Wooden structure on top of the hill

Right on top of the hill there’s this wooden structure which resembles something out of an America forest fire disaster movie from the 1950s 😉

(I really should get out more!)

Nice part is there are numerous wooden fence posts to tie poles too, and a nice seat with a view westwards. This is where I played radio.

Quite an enjoyable time, with a fair number of curious onlookers to keep amused!

Many thanks to the following for the contacts:

I was going to do a little HF, but having missed lunch I was getting hungry!

All in all, a very enjoyable walk, if a little muddy on the way up!

Apologies about the rubbish pics… I left the real camera in the car – Doh!