Al M7FPX and myself had been talking about doing a joint CW POTA/SOTA activation and after Leandro G5LSI told use about a small area on Bishop Wilton Wold G/TW-004 that crosses into a POTA GB-6750 we thought we would have a go and activate both on CW. Leandro’s write up can be found here https://yprg.org.uk/2026/05/26/garrowby-hill-sota-pota/
The idea would be we would split the audio output so we could both listen at the same time and one of use would use the morse key. This way we had 2 heads to work on the decode. Once we had enough to activate we would swap over key and the other would have a go. What could go wrong?
We arranged to met on one of the side roads on Bishop Walton Wold. It has a massive activation zone with the A166 going through it. It’s also called Garrowby Hill. I got there and Al was already there, we had a quick chat about where we going and grabbed our bags and headed off.
The walk was probably less then a kilometre and it was down a farm track and then across a field on a public right of way. We had the details from Leandro so kept checking the map and our location until we found the very small cross activation zone. It was about 3 meters wide and 10 long which sounds ok until you see it was on about a 45 degree angle at the top of a large slope and dotted with hawthorn trees. This was going to be fun.
The wind was quite strong and it was going to be cold sitting in it and it also looked like it might rain. So we got a tarp out rigged a wind break shelter. Once that was in place we set up the mast and Al’s 20-40m dipole, then Al set up his KX2 and we got as comfy as we could on the side of the slope.
Rather than calling CQ ourselves we decided the plan was to hunt CW SOTA and POTA activators and then swap the key between us so we could both get them in our log but first we messaged YPRG to see if anyone was free. Neil M0NJH and Leandro G5LSI were so we found a frequency that was free and called a normal CQ. First to reply was Neil and then with him in the log we worked Leandro. 2 in the log each, this just might work.
I had also told my CW-Ops group I was going to be do this and Leif SM4T said he would be free so we changed bands to 20m and found a free frequency and called CQ, he replied! We got a message from YPRG that they could hear us on 20m too so we got to work Neil and Leandro again. That’s 5 in the log, SOTA activated and half way to the POTA.
We then hunted John DL/EI3KA/P who was doing a SOTA in Germany followed by Claudio IK4DRU who was activating a park.
After this we tried to hunt more but were either not getting heard or could not hear them. With 7 in the log we decided to switch to SSB as we knew if we called CQ SOTA/POTA we would get hunted.
We managed to get a P2P with dual operators just like we had, so a lot of passing the mic around. With a few more contacts we got 10, the park was activated.
I then got another message from Hannu OH1HAQ asking if we were still activating and did we want to try a CW QSO with him, of course we did. With Hannu in the log we called it a day, nearly 2 hours of perching on the slope was enough. We got packed up and enjoyed the walk back to the cars.
| Operation Details |
| Park: https://pota.app/#/park/GB-6750 Summit: https://www.sotadata.org.uk/en/summit/G/TW-004 Grid square: IO93ox WAB square: SE85 |
| Working Conditions |
| Elcraft KX2 Sotabeams tactical mini Sotabeams Band Hopper III Ham2K Polo |
| Operation Totals |
| 15 QSOs 6 DXCC Entities 5 P2P 4 Band and 3 modes 40m – 2 CW 20m – 6 CW, 5 SSB 2m – 2 FM 70cm – 2 FM |
