"Diary of a Madman" - part 3

From our B&B in Windermere, we drove down to the lakeside and then south down the A592 towards Newby Bridge. The left turning near the south end of Lake Windermere was signposted "Gummer's How", and we drove up this steep road to the car park on the right.

It was Tuesday 1st June 2010, and that meant 2m activity contest night. The VHF ACs have become something of a favourite of mine in recent years, and now I'm hooked. So much so that I try not to miss one, even when I am away. While this was a "uniques" excursion, I considered it best to choose a known simple summit for a nightime activation.

Jimmy and I were pretty tired after our long day, and as easy as Gummer's How is, we were both feeling fatigued as we hauled our bodies up the stepped path towards the summit.

       

I set up the 2m SOTA Beam, while Jimmy set about the little 2 man £11 tent which would keep the chill out for the evening. It was a very nice evening with an attractive sunset and the eerieness of the mist filling up below all the way down Lake Windermere. There wasn't any wind at all, but that was not positive, because it meant the midges were down - and they were bothering! I crawled into the respite of the tent much earlier than anticipated to escape their feeding frenzy, but they were nothing if not determined and crawling through the netting to get in there with us! Peace at last at 9.30pm, when some figure of authority in the midge world must have shouted "Bedtime" and almost in an instant, their nuisance was no more.

Radio wise the contest was interesting. My position in IO84 resulted in only about 70% of the normal number of QSOs, but the points per QSO were more than usual, especially for all the Cheshire/Manchester contesters. Jimmy failed to attract any takers on 2m FM before the contest, so dipped in to take the occasional 2m SSB QSO, recording a total of six. I finished with 34 contacts, and 11 multipliers, but some annoying getaways. Strong signals were heard from JO01, JO02 and IO64, but they couldn't hear me.

       

Pack away and descent was by the light of our new Petzl headtorches, and I was impressed by their performance. It was like walking in daylight! We drove back up to Windermere, found a pub that would serve us at 11.15pm and sunk a pint each.  Driving back to the B&B, parking spaces were non-existent. Jimmy spotted plenty of space along a single yellow line though, and checking the sign, it said "9am to 7pm". Fine, we pulled the car in and went to our accommodation. We both slept very well in the B&B that night.