Friday 14th September 2018 - Botley Hill G/SE-005, Leith Hill G/SE-002 & Crowborough G/SE-007

Gig: Joe Longthorne

Venue: Palace Theatre, Southend-on-Sea

Despite a late night, I was wide awake at 0530 BST.  I quietly got dressed and slipped out of the room so as not to disturb the drummer - ironic, as he’s a noisy so-and-so!  I programmed the route into the satnav - 150 miles or so (the reality of SOTA activating in the South-East) - and got cracking.  The satnav didn’t drop me quite where I was expecting on Botley Hill, and it took a bit of work to find my way to the highest point by the water tower and masts.  This is a pretty dismal spot, but it’s just a case of setting up and making do!

I operated again on 20m FT8.  Fabio IK2LEY led the way, as is typical, following which I enjoyed a couple of “DX” contacts - EA8DFQ (Gran Canaria) and A41ZZ (Oman) - provided a nice little DX fix.  Just three more stations were worked - two RA and one SP.  I wanted to get at least two summits done in the day, and I especially wanted not to be late for soundcheck.  Bearing in mind that I still had at least 100 miles to drive, probably to be completed on a Friday afternoon - on the M25 near London - I decided to pack up promptly and get on my way to Leith Hill G/SE-002.