Wednesday 19th February 2014 - Billinge Hill G/SP-017.  A hospital appointment in Crosby (North Liverpool) was a cue to get up early and activate one of SOTA's worst summits! Parking at the end of Beacon Road, I made the short and scenic walk up alongside the landfill and recycling site to the ugly brick cuboidal structure at the summit.  Just five QSOs on 24MHz, two on CW and three on SSB. All with local (North West) G stations, so I assumed that propagation had not yet awoken. After half an hour or so of operating on a freshly charged 7Ah SLAB, the voltage indicated began to nosedive, and it soon appeared I had a flat battery.

       

A call on the 2m FM handie brought a sixth and final QSO for the activation, and I returned to the car. I thought I had better remove the SLAB from the rucksack hood and place it on the passenger seat so as to ensure I didn't forget to take it in the house with me when I got home. This was when I discovered that the fuseholder was undone, and the positive lead side of the battery was disconnected, with the fuse floating away somewhere deep inside an Exped Drybag.

       

So the intermittent nature of the indicated supply voltage was down to a very loose connection in the red lead, and the plunging-to-flat voltage was when all that was powering the set-up was the internal NiMH with hardly any juice in it!  Ah well, never mind. After returning home from the appointment, I decided to go back out and activate The Cloud G/SP-015.