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.

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:

 

Callsign	Time	Name/Location	Frequency	Mode
2E0CHV/P	16:20z	Simon, Stiperstones (G/WB-003)	2M	FM
M0IBC	16:40z	Dave, Rowley Regis	2M	FM
G8ILP/A	16:55z	Tim, Ross on Wye	2M	FM
G0UWU	17:00z	Mike, Gloucester	2M	FM
MOJLA	17:05z	Rod, Hereford	2M	FM
GW7HDC	17:10z	Tony, Knighton	2M	FM
GW0HUS	17:20z	Graham, Moel y Crio	2M	FM

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 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!

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:

 

Callsign	Time	Frequency	Mode
M0HCT	18:30z	2M	FM
M0PRJ	18:42z	2M	FM
G1TYK	18:55z	2M	FM
M0BAS	19:07z	2M	FM
G6LLX/P	19:13z	2M	FM
M6BAS	19:23z	2M	FM