It's a whole new era of SOTA activating for me. Alone. On me Jack Jones. With my trusty companions of the last 14 years tucked up in bed for their weekend lie-ins.  The walk-in to Black Hill G/SP-002 summit seemed ever so easy without the presence of either snow or ice, that normally greets me for my January or February activations. But with the temperature nudging 10 degrees, even up above 500m ASL, it was decidedly mild.

However, there was a cold breeze at the summit, so I made full use of the large drystone base to the trigpoint for shelter. Up went the 10m/6m trap vertical + GP - which allowed me to discover the total lack of conditions on 28MHz! I hadn't alerted, couldn't self-spot due to no data coverage up there, and of course the RBNgate was not operational (RIP Eric KU6J).

I soon found Mark G0VOF and Phil G4OBK, so it would seem one of my spot attempts did get through, even though it appeared otherwise according to my phone! Just 8 contacts were made, 4 each on CW and SSB.

Then over the heather came Simon G4TJC, which was a pleasant surprise. We had an enjoyable natter for 15 minutes or so, then I decided to call it a day and leave Simon the summit. The rest of Saturday revolved around Macclesfield Town v Aldershot (at which I was honoured to meet and speak to the five year old son of Fusilier Lee Rigby), ten-pin bowling with Jimmy & Liam, and Celebrity Big Brother!