Today was my first attempt at the Welsh Boarder 5 (Famous 5) all on the same day.
First Summit.
G/WB-002 Brown Clee. 12th January 2019.
Altitude 540M. Grid SO 593867.
As the famous five are basically on my doorstep I didn't need a 6 a.m. start, so I left home at 7:30 a.m. and arrived at my usual car park spot of grid SO 58548 86899 at 8:00 a.m. after a quick stop to take a great morning sunrise photo. I got all my gear ready and started my ascent. The equipment that I was going to use for the five summits was my Yaesu FT 270 handheld and my home brew 2m yagi. I managed to arrive at the summit at 8:23 a.m. took a quick few photos and set my gear up and started calling CQ Sota.
This was a very quick activation with only 4 QSO's, probably because I was a good 30 minutes or more before the time that I had spotted myself for, (sorry to the chasers that missed me). The cloud cover was bad on the way up after altitude of 400 m, the descent was a lot clearer.
Second Summit.
G/WB-004 Titterstone. 12th January 2019.
Altitude 533M. Grid SO 591779.
I arrived at my next car park at 9:45 a.m. grid SO 59393 77560 this is the disused quarry. This is a fairly easy ascent and I was at the summit and set up by 10:02 a.m. I had a quick look around the band and heard MW0XRT/P (Dave) on GW/NW-031 so a good start with S2S. I then gave my own CQ Sota call and managed to bag a further 10 QSO's with my final, another S2S this time with GW4TQE/P (John).
First Summit.
G/WB-002 Brown Clee. 12th January 2019.
Altitude 540M. Grid SO 593867.
As the famous five are basically on my doorstep I didn't need a 6 a.m. start, so I left home at 7:30 a.m. and arrived at my usual car park spot of grid SO 58548 86899 at 8:00 a.m. after a quick stop to take a great morning sunrise photo. I got all my gear ready and started my ascent. The equipment that I was going to use for the five summits was my Yaesu FT 270 handheld and my home brew 2m yagi. I managed to arrive at the summit at 8:23 a.m. took a quick few photos and set my gear up and started calling CQ Sota.
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G/WB-004 Titterstone. 12th January 2019.
Altitude 533M. Grid SO 591779.
I arrived at my next car park at 9:45 a.m. grid SO 59393 77560 this is the disused quarry. This is a fairly easy ascent and I was at the summit and set up by 10:02 a.m. I had a quick look around the band and heard MW0XRT/P (Dave) on GW/NW-031 so a good start with S2S. I then gave my own CQ Sota call and managed to bag a further 10 QSO's with my final, another S2S this time with GW4TQE/P (John).
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Third Summit.
GW/MW-013 Corndon Hill. 12th January 2019.
Altitude 514M. Grid SO 306969.
After a drive of about 45 minutes I arrived at my car park position at grid SO 29980 96771, I had been listening to Vicki on the Black Mountain as her signal came in and out on my route. I gave her a quick call and informed her I had arrived. Time to get to the top before I would loss the S2S. I managed to ascend and set up in 15 minutes, I was a little out of breath after that. This was far the windiest of the summits so far. I sat against the trig point and had to fight with the wind to keep my yagi and its little mast vertical. I managed to get my S2S with MW6BWA/P (Vicki) and MW0JLA/P (Rod) on GW/SW-041 as my first two QSO's then a further 16 QSO's including S2S with G7LAS (Stewart) on a HEMA summit G/HCE-002 and G7HEM/P (Mike) on G/CE-002. I also managed to hold QSO's with nine of our own club members from TDARS (Telford and District Amateur Society). I had received a few not so good signal reports from this summit and found out why as I packed away my gear, one of the crocodile clips on my antenna feed point had nearly broken through. I had not taken any tools with me on this trip (bad mistake). I was going to have to activate my last two summits using the handhelds little rubber duck aerial.
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Fourth Summit.
G/WB-003 Stiperstones. 12th January 2019.
Altitude 536M. Grid SO 367986.
A quick 10 minutes drive from Corndon Hill and I had arrived at my car park grid SO 36938 97692. The car park was nearly full, a lot of walkers out on this summit. A quick walk up from the car park to the summit and I was there in 15 minutes. As I said before no yagi for this activation so I was calling CQ Sota in less than a minute. My first chaser was G0UFE.M (Simon) from our club (TDARS), followed quickly over the next 6 minutes another 8 QSO's (7 TDARS) and M1CNL (Peter) in Tamworth.
A quick 10 minutes drive from Corndon Hill and I had arrived at my car park grid SO 36938 97692. The car park was nearly full, a lot of walkers out on this summit. A quick walk up from the car park to the summit and I was there in 15 minutes. As I said before no yagi for this activation so I was calling CQ Sota in less than a minute. My first chaser was G0UFE.M (Simon) from our club (TDARS), followed quickly over the next 6 minutes another 8 QSO's (7 TDARS) and M1CNL (Peter) in Tamworth.
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Fifth and final Summit.
G/WB-005 Long Mynd Pole Bank. 12th January 2019.
Altitude 516M. Grid SO 415944.
I arrived at my car park grid SO 42083 95327 at 13:57 p.m. and had a little 10 minute walk up to the summit trig point. Again a lot of walkers on the summit but they all said hello as you passed them. I think by this point I was a good 1 1/2 hours in front of my alerted times on Sotawatch. I gave a CQ Sota call out again and M0KZB (Eric) (TDARS Chairman) was the first to come back to me followed up quickly by 9 others including 4 more (TDARS members). The last summit was activated and finished in 8 minutes.
I had managed to complete the Famous 5 as they are sometimes referred to in 5 hours 28 minutes from arriving at the first car park and holding my last QSO. I know its not a race but I like to keep my eye on my timings.
The over all results are as follows:
Miles driven = 95.7
miles walked = 6.4
steps taken = 13,215
QSO's = 51
S2S = 6
This was a very good day and with the winter bonus points I claimed 25 points towards the final goal of SOTA Mountain Goat. Thank you to all of the S2S's and the chasers and I hope to catch you soon on another summit.
I arrived at my car park grid SO 42083 95327 at 13:57 p.m. and had a little 10 minute walk up to the summit trig point. Again a lot of walkers on the summit but they all said hello as you passed them. I think by this point I was a good 1 1/2 hours in front of my alerted times on Sotawatch. I gave a CQ Sota call out again and M0KZB (Eric) (TDARS Chairman) was the first to come back to me followed up quickly by 9 others including 4 more (TDARS members). The last summit was activated and finished in 8 minutes.
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The over all results are as follows:
Miles driven = 95.7
miles walked = 6.4
steps taken = 13,215
QSO's = 51
S2S = 6
This was a very good day and with the winter bonus points I claimed 25 points towards the final goal of SOTA Mountain Goat. Thank you to all of the S2S's and the chasers and I hope to catch you soon on another summit.
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