Sunday 18th November 2018 - Black Down G/SE-003 & Butser Hill G/SE-004

Gig: Joe Longthorne

Venue: New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth

I set out from my sister-in-law’s place in Chandlers Ford at 10am and drove along the A31 towards Haslemere.  My target was Black Down, a summit I had only ever activated once before.  A cul-de-sac road became a dirt track as I pulled into the upper of two car parks.  It was extremely busy, but there was one space left. 

I set off along the path recalling it to be a very short and pretty much level walk.  Well it was a little bit longer than I remembered, but nonetheless quick and easy.  I used the hole in the trig point to support my mast, deciding to set up 20m with no replies on the 2m handheld. 12 QSOs were made on CW on a glorious mild and sunny November morning - most un-Novemberlike.

I still had plenty of time to get to soundcheck at the theatre in Portsmouth.  Joe had been making a habit during the show of asking me what hill I’d been up that day.  After me telling him, he’d been turning to the audience and asking if they’d heard of it.  With most fairly obscure hills I’d done, usually they hadn’t, leading to the other band members saying “Can’t you just say Ben Nevis or something?”  So with a bit of time to spare, and despite already activating it this year, I made for Butser Hill G/SE-004, which I anticipated would be reasonably known to a Portsmouth audience!