Day 11 - Wednesday 4th August 2010 (part 2)    

  From Whittington, east of Cheltenham, we followed the minor road around until the right turning for the long cul-de-sac road up to the transmitters and car park on Cleeve Hill. This turning is signpost as 'Cleeve Common'. Beware, on the other side of the hill are road signs for 'Cleeve Hill' village on the other side of the hill, but it is a much longer walk from there.

       

Liam remained in the car again, which was fine as I would have a view of it from the summit of the hill. The car park is in fact easily within the activation zone at barely 3m below the summit height. But Jimmy and I are purists and like to take the walk to the trig point, however short and unnecessary it is.

Assuming that Jimmy would not need HF backup from this location, I set up for 30m CW, and worked 8 stations. However, it turned out that Jimmy was struggling with the pager QRM from the nearby transmitters, and had only worked Richard G4ERP - who kindly invited us round after the activation. Jimmy took over on the 817 and 40m antenna, and had already worked an EA station responding to the CQ call before I had put the spot on! Three more quickly followed, including Frank G3RMD who announced his intention to meet us at the summit car park.

       

Sure enough, even before Jimmy and I had made it back to the car, there was Frank striding onto Cleeve Common. It was great to meet one of SOTA's leading activators, and Jimmy and I had an enjoyable chat with Frank for ten minutes or so. Frank kindly invited us down to his QTH for sandwiches, which was very tempting, but as late as it was - nearly 6pm in the evening - we still wanted to complete the mission and do two further activations on the way home.

It was a difficult one though - sandwiches at Frank G3RMD's in Cheltenham, followed by tea at Richard G4ERP's in Bishop's Cleeve - if anything has ever come close to forcing me to cancel two activations, then this was it! As discussed with Frank though, SOTA activating is dangerously addictive, and when you've got an idea in your head... You know the rest.

   

Visitations from SOTA's well-known characters did not end there though, for on the way downhill from Cleeve, we were flagged down by a biker. This was Stewart G0LGS who, like Frank, had decided to intercept us close to his home QTH. Another three-way natter between the amateurs in attendance and a photocall was in order before hitting the road north for Bredon Hill G/CE-003.