This summit was activated by me in a solo expedition on Saturday 28th June 2003.   

I headed out of the Malverns on the A4104, A38, M50 and M5, exiting at J11. I then followed the A40 until the village of Whittington where it is left off the A40, left again, and then the second right (excluding works & farm entrances). This is signpost as "Cleeve Common" and takes you right up to the unsightly transmitting station close to the summit. There is an ample parking area outside the transmitting station, and you go over the stile onto Cleeve Common, a wide expanse of green hardly looking like a summit, let alone a Marilyn, and popular with mountain bikers. The weather continued in excellent form, perhaps warmer still than earlier. The trig point was just about 100 yards up along the side of the field, and to my great joy was not filled in at the top allowing for very quick and easy erection of the mast with guys etc. 2m seemed very quiet initially, but within 15 minutes the summit was in the bag with 5 contacts in the Wiltshire/Bristol area. I then turned the beam north, as the chasers in Birmingham worked earlier on Worcestershire Beacon WB-009 had all pledged to be looking out for me on Cleeve Hill. Sure enough, Don and Pete were there, but Graham was having difficulty hearing me even though I was getting him fine. Several attempts were made to make the contact, helped by Don with a bit of net control, but no joy. We were just about to give up when Graham mentioned "I'd have no problem if he was horizontally polarised". Eureka! Horizontally polarised I went, and 59 reports were exchanged!

Back to the car, and a nervous ten minutes in my car with virtually empty fuel tank, running on fumes, and a very relieved yours truly to discover a petrol station as soon as rejoining the A40. It was then headlong into London, and to Twickenham for the BDXC do. After dropping my gear at the B&B (a really excellent one if anyone needs a recommendation for this part of London), it was a wander down in the continuing warm afternoon sunshine to the Barmy Arms on the Thames embankment.

Callsign today was MX1SWL/P, club callsign of the International Short Wave League (ISWL) - see my radio page for more details.  Thanks to the following stations worked, all on 2m FM with 2.5 watts, except the last two where 5 watts was employed in order to make the contacts good!: