This summit was activated by myself, accompanied by Jimmy and Liam on Bank Holiday Monday 3rd January 2005.   

Navigating around the little windy lines from Titterstone Clee Hill G/WB-004 was difficult, but frequent comparison of junction roadsigns with the road atlas on the Explorer 1:25000 sheet brought us to the start point without a wrong turning.  This time, I opted for a different ascent, following the Shropshire Way from a point ENE of the village of Abdon.  This follows a graded track that was initially very muddy, most of the way up to the summit plateau.  Where the hill begins to round off, we turned left (NE) and walked the gentler gradient to the trig point of Brown Clee Hill.

       

This year, I opted to head around to the area north of the transmitters, and settled into a very comfortable steep and tall heathery bank that gave us shelter from both the fierce southerly wind, and the RF QRM - or so we thought.  No chance - the entire 2m and 70cm bands were filled with a symphony of hideous noises.  I flipped the SOTA Beam on horizontally in a bid to reduce the effect of this, with limited success.  The local lads G4JZF and G0NES were worked easily enough, but then it appeared that the RF was going to block any further contacts.  I was just about to pack away the beam, and go for a walk with the rubber duck when I noticed that my SOTA Beam was beaming south - ie straight into the heathery bank and the suite of transmitters and radars!  A quick 180 degree alteration to the beam heading brought a huge signal from Steve G1INK/P, now on Kinder Scout G/SP-001.  The summit was then qualified with ease courtesy of Ian G7ADF/M on Winter Hill (but not for SOTA), GW4BVE/P & 2W0UPT/P on Foel Fenlli GW/NW-051 and a quick natter with Brian G8ADD.  Finally Ian G7ADF was sniffing around for SWL points, so I put out a quick call on 70cm - but he answered it, effectively replacing his 2 SWL points with 0 chaser points!

       

It had threatened to rain all day, and we wore waterproofs all day, but we got back to the car with not a drop on them - such is life.  We made good progress on the return car journey while enjoying remarkably good reception of the football commentary from 106.9 Silk FM all the way, although not particularly enjoying the distribution of the goals being scored in the match.  At half-time, I worked M1DDD in Quarnford near Buxton.  I was passing Telford, and the other station he was working was near Lincoln!  We made the Waggon & Horses in Congleton just after 5pm for a celebratory pint and 'phone-call home, alerting Marianne to our impending  return.

Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with 2.5 watts, except G0NES (0.5 watts) and G7ADF/M (70cm):