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!

If at first you don’t succeed…….

My first attempt at activating  Brown Clee Hill was a total failure!. I blame Bradley Wiggins and his Tour de France win, which was the same Sunday.. The result was a whole 2 QSOs on 20M, and nothing at all on 2M..

So, it was time to try again 🙂

Saturday 18th August saw me jumping in the car for the short journey (for me anyway!) to the parking spot at SO585868. Actually I parked on the hill just above the phone box, maybe I should have parked at the gate, to take 50 yards or so off the walk 🙂 Grabbing the stuff, I set off up the lane and through the gate.

Only 2 minutes to Brown Clee Hill!

Just through the gate there’s a nice sign…

2 minutes to Brown Clee Hill!  Yay!
Remember, you’re not a horse!
Consequently, it’s going to take a tad more than 2 minutes to get up there.. Actually, I’m not sure a horse can get up there in 2 minutes, but who am I to doubt the sign maker?
It’s a bit of a slog really, most of the time in a dip between the hill and a grassy bank, lots of sheep, a lot of rubble, and quite a bit of animal poo…..  but nice views to the west towards Wales. But within about 15-20 minutes I was at the top of the ‘climb’ at the gate where you turn left and navigate your way across a bit of boggy terrain.. At least from here you can see the masts, and you can see where you’re going to!

Ambling up the gentle slope, I heard 2E0CHV/P calling from The Stiperstones. Unfortunately, at this point I wasn’t within the activation zone, so I left a reply until later.

By 16:20 I was ready, 4 sections if the fishing pole with the 2M SOTAbeam on top with the 817nd attached. I heard 2E0CHV/P calling again, and answered, giving me my first contact.

Closely followed by M0IBC in Rowley Regis who kindly spotted me on SOTAwatch. This resulted in a further 5 contacts, meaning I’d bettered the 2 from the last time!

All contacts on 2M FM, I did try 2M SSB, but failed to make any contacts whatsoever.. never mind.

Many thanks to the following:

I thought about doing some HF, but after getting the link dipole out and finding it was more tangled than a tangled thing from the planet tangled, I threw it back in the back pack and packed up!

It was a lot easier walking back down! A very nice afternoon in the sunshine really!

End of the boggy bit, time to go downhill

Half way down the steep bit!

Umm…  second attempt to qualify this summit (First was sort of curtailed a couple of weeks ago when a load of horses decided to take a liking to my antenna…  I now know why the collective noun for horses is a ‘Harras’ 😉  Suffice to say I only managed one QSO that night!

Anyway, after fighting through what seemed busier than normal Bristol, I pulled into the car park at ST489581 with about another 5 cars, most of which seemed to have bike racks on, and was ready to go at about 18:50 GMT.

I followed the route I did last time, up across the road and up the path at the side of Ellick House, through the gate and taking the well defined way up SW towards the summit (ish)

Up the path, straight into the sun!

Up the top of this section, the path takes a little swing to the south and up towards the Trig Point.

It appeared that there had been quite a bit of drainage work done at this point, and quite a lot of small rocks placed along the track, no doubt to see how many mountain bikers they could dislodge from their seats!

There also appeared to be 2 trailers full of rubbish parked here for some unknown reason 🙁

Just before I reached the Trig Point, about 25 minutes after setting off, I disappeared into the heather and gorse to find a small hollow beside a small tree, hoping to avoid any further horse related incidents.

I had my fishing pole fastened to a small tree, and the sota beam in the air. I had a quick check on sotawatch, but couldn’t see any potential S2S activity, so I spotted myself and gave out a CQ

It all seemed pretty dead, I could hear a few fairly distant, mainly mobile, stations, but couldn’t work them, and eventually ended up with martin, M0HCT, from Nailsea.. Very spooky!  Only one letter out from my callsign!

Rubbish pic of the trig point in the gathering gloom!

Quickly followed by Paul, M0PRJ, from Kingswood, and a few others, including Keith, G6LLX/P who was on May Hill G/WB-019, but not doing any SOTA activation, Since I have no idea if he was within the activation zone, I can’t really claim it as a S2S.

Finishing off with M6KBC in Bath as the sun went down, with 6 QSOs, all on 2M FM, that was it.. I packed up and had a wander up to the trig point. Just to say I’d been there (again!) before making my way back down, being almost dark by the time I got back to the car.

So, second time lucky for this one.

Many thanks to the following:

I’ve been working down in Bristol for a while and wanted to do some radio ‘stuff’ but… It’s just been too damn wet!

Apart from the 17th July, which seemed like it’s the first day for weeks that it hadn’t rained. So, armed with my FT817ND, recently made (but untested) link dipole, fishing pole and very necessary groundsheet(!), off I went to Dundry Down (G/SC-010) after work.

Bristol being Bristol was a pain to drive through, but the satnav eventually brought me within a few feet of the car park recommended by Richard on SOTAwatch, and off I went through the field full of cows..!

Far from being a tip, I think this route was quite pleasant, even if some large puddles and a *lot* of cow pats needed to be navigated around! Quite easy for someone as unfit as me….

So, fishing pole was erected and link dipole setup, but for some reason SWR was found to be way out on 40M, and since I only cut it for 40, 20 and 10, that probably left only 20 to use.

No competition from these then…

Having a look on SOTAwatch spots, I noticed Hans Christian ( LA1EBA/P) on some unpronounceable 😉 summit (LA/RL-061) in Norway. He was coming through about 4/7 but I just couldn’t get in due to a long winded QSO he was in with someone in Holland I think.

Anyway, I spotted myself on SOTAwatch and was on air around 18:35z Quickly followed by a couple of contacts in Slovakia and Denmark.

Then tried getting back to LA1EBA/P who could just about hear me, but he was soon lost in the noise, unfortunately. maybe another day!

Followed by a QSO with Andy in Falkirk who very kindly put out another spot for my one remaining QSO, which was picked up by Tony in Manchester, followed closely by Sara, his XYL.

Graeme in Glasgow followed, as did 4 walkers who asked me to send their regards to Glasgow 😉 And the evening finished off with Michael from near Lake Constance in Germany.

Just before packing up, I thought I’d investigate the antenna, only to find that it was working perfectly on 40m.. Probably something to do with the ends being about a foot off the ground… oh well, never mind!

Looking West-ish

Looking sort of North towards Bristol

Many thanks to the following:

Altogether quite a successful first HF activation. There was quite a few stations heard on 2M FM, but the interference from the transmitters was quite bad at times, so in true ‘give up’ style, I didn’t bother 🙂