Food, beer, work and SOTA combine periodically, in theory once per year, for a face-to-face meeting of the SOTA Management Team. Making a prompt start on the M6 after work on Friday 6th July 2012 necessitated missing the usual staff football session. However, this meant I avoid the worst of the traffic, and was passing into Cumbria in good time.

   

Now, I begrudge visiting that county without collecting 2 or 3 SOTA activations, so I pulled off at J37 and parked near the quarry, the usual starting point for Lambrigg Fell G/LD-046. Thankfully, this coincided with a rare respite from the day's heavy rain. I followed the same route as used with Liam last year, along the track nearly to the windmills, and then make a beeline for the wall across the summit.

       

A quick 2m FM handheld activation was attempted. But nobody answered. So, reluctantly, as time was now pressing on, I put up the 30m dipole and connected the Rockmite 30 174mW rig. And got no QSOs on that either!

6-Jul-12
Battery: #1. Activation: #14
Summit: G/LD-046. Band: 30m
Radio: Rockmite 30
Antenna: Inverted V Dipole @ 6m agl
Battery: Duracell Pro-Life
Finish Voltage at room temp: Not a clue
New DXCCs: 0
Cumulative DXCCs: 19 (9A, DL, G, GM, HA, HB, I, LA, LZ, OE, OK, OM, OZ, PA, RA, S5, SM, SP, SV)
QSOs: 0. Cumulative QSOs: 57

I put the Rockmite away and replaced it with the relative QRO of the FT-817. This time, the contacts came easily. However, they did suddenly dry up after four QSOs! This was not a problem, as I needed to complete my journey north in time for food. I descended to the car and drove up into the Eden Valley and the Strickland Arms in Great Strickland.  Here I met up with Barry GM4TOE, Andy MM0FMF, John G3WGV and Rob G0HRT, as well as enjoyed a superb Thai fish curry and Jennings ales. Enjoyable.