I was going up to the Lake District for a Scout camp, we were not meeting until the evening so I thought I could go up early and try and get some SOTA and POTA activations.
I had a look at the maps and decided to do a few small outlying summits rather than one big one. This was for 2 reasons, 1/ whilst I’m happy and confident to walk the big stuff on my own, why take the risk especially when carrying the extra radio kit 2/ The scout camp I was going to was in the far north west of the Lakes so it’s a long drive for a 1 point SOTA and as I was going to be there made sense to get them.
The first summit was Watch Hill G/LD-054 near Cockermouth and it’s also within the Lake District National Park so it’s a POTA GB-0165.
With an early start from home I got the road at the bottom of the hill for just after 10:00, I had my bag already packed so picked it up, locked the car and headed off up the track. There were a few people around, either setting up or packing away mountain bikes, so I made a note to stay to one side of the tracks and not get in their way. Did not want to get hit by a bike whizzing down the hill.
The track up was Forestry Commission, so big enough for trucks so it was an easy walk up in the sunshine with a nice view over the fells.
To get to the summit I had to branch off the main track and follow a small trail through the woods, it was a bit steeper but nothing to hard. Once at the top of the trail there was dry stone wall so I followed it along and found a style to cross over it and in to a field at the summit.
What a lovely little hill with a great view.
I decided to try 2m first and got the flowerpot antenna set up on the mast and started calling CQ SOTA. First contact was in the Scotland! What a great start. Then a local contact and then another distant one to Northen Ireland and then 3 more local. Great Summit is activated, now to get the Park.
I swapped to HF using an EFLW as normal and had look if anyone else was activating so I could hunt them, I saw Klaus, DL2KL/P was on DM/BM-210 Moritzberg so I called in and got a Summit to Summit. Then 3 more contacts Austria, Poland and France. With that being 10 contacts the park was activated and it was time for me to pack up and move to the next one.
As I was packing up I heard a loud low drone and then suddenly a C-130 appeared. Always amazing to see them fly so low.
I got packed up and headed down the hill and back to the car.
| Operation Details |
| Park: https://pota.app/#/park/GB-0165 Summit: https://www.sotadata.org.uk/en/summit/G/LD-054 Grid square: IO84kl WAB square: NY13 |
| Working Conditions |
| Icom IC-705 Icom AH-705 Sotabeams tactical mini Sotabeams EFLW Homemade Flower pot for 2m Ham2K Polo |
| Operation Totals |
| 10 QSOs 7 DXCC Entities 1 S2S 2 Band and 2 modes 2m – 6 FM 20m – 4 SSB |
