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This summit was activated on Thursday 24th July 2003, by myself, accompanied as usual
by Jimmy & Liam.
From View Edge WB-018, we drove west on the minor road and
through the villages of Broome and Aston on Clun, before arriving at Hopesay. In Hopesay,
we turned left into the short cul-de-sac leading to the church and parked. The footpath
goes from the end of this road, but you need to bear right and head through the ferns,
rather than continue on the road/track which just leads to a farm. This route is generally
well signed, and is the Shropshire Way. We continued climbing up the inclined fields until
we could turn left and walk around the edge of the wood. It was then left again, and along
the track leading up to the edge of the fort, lots of dogwalkers coming the other way! At
the summit of the track, it was then necessary to turn right to ascend to the actual
summit, located at the centre of what presumably is a medieval fort. This area is shown as
totally wooded on the map, but to my delight, most of the area around the summit was
covered by nothing more than ferns. We didn't climb all the way to the top, as the ferns
were a nuisance and we found a relatively clear spot where we could bed down and set up.
We could see the summit and were clearly within 25m vertically, with the map indicating
that we were about 10m vertically down from the summit. The SOTA Beam had worked superbly all day, but now was showing higher than usual (but not high) SWR. This was a great pity, as a Scottish station was calling on 2m SSB, and had the antenna been working efficiently, I would have been confident of working him, even on the low power. Problems continued on 2m FM, and I clearly wasn't getting out well at all. Further inspection of the SOTA Beam revealed that I had connected one side of the feeder to the wrong bit, and this was quickly rectified! Hey presto, now getting out, and stations coming back to the call straight away! Tony G0SKG was there for me again on the third summit out of three, and then it was nice to get Alan G0JNJ from my hometown of Macclesfield. I had just installed the second battery pack (the first one ran out after View Edge WB-018), so I was able to have a relaxed rag chew with Alan, before getting my other two contacts and completing the final activation for the day at 7.20pm BST. We arrived home, complete with KFC from the drivethrough in Congleton, at 10.00pm! Jimmy & Liam scoffed their tea and then went straight to bed; Marianne, by this point out on her night-shift, was highly unimpressed! Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with 2.5 watts:
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