After our meal, we drove through the maze of Gloucestershire lanes to the village of Ruardean, and then the subsidiary village of Ruardean Hill.  After a couple of false starts, we found the correct road up to the highest part of the area and pulled in on a side road.  A very short walk took us over past the trig point to the village green and Ruardean Beacon.  We were hoping that handheld operation was going to be enough to see us through.  While the late hour was not prohibitive to us using the radios, or a problem for a safe descent on this particular hill, we were supposed to be checked in at the youth hostel before 11pm.  And it was nearly 10pm already!

Several calls on S20 produced nothing, but other QSOs could be heard clearly on the band.  I attempted to break into these conversations, and persuade the participants to make brief contacts with us.  Fortunately, all stations were most obliging, although we struggled to complete a proper QSO with one station.  Then up popped Richard G4ERP and Frank G3RMD which allowed us to relax with two easy contacts with which to qualify the activation.

We were back on the road by 10.15pm BST and zooming through the pitch black eerie country lanes.  Jimmy made a call on his mobile to the hostel to advise of our ETA (really to ensure that the doors wouldn't be locked upon our return!).  We arrived at Welsh Bicknor YHA just before 11pm, checked in and went straight to our room in the out-building for some much-needed kip.  The alarm was reluctantly set for 6am in order to allow us the maximum time for the maximum number of activations tomorrow.

Many thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with either Jimmy's Yaesu VX-110 or my Yaesu VX-7R: