Richard G3CWI invited me on a joint SOTA activation for Wednesday 30th November 2011, but inexplicably left the choice of summit to me. Liam, faced with the option of coming out for a walk or indulging in a "lazy day" at his Nanny's house, inexplicably chose the outdoor outing.

Jimmy M3EYP, faced with the choice of repeating a previously-done SOTA Unique, or a day at home vegetating in front of his computer, inexplicably chose the activation. Edward M6NSR immediately accepted Jimmy's invitation when 'phoned. The only inexplicable aspect of this was that he only had "night before" notice, which is not normally enough for Ed!

   

So it was a car full of five that set off from Macclesfield around 0745z, and headed north up the A34, M60 and A56. A lorry took exception to me limiting my speed to that of the vehicle in front of me and tried to barge me into the hard shoulder as punishment!

Breakfast was taken in the big Tesco, just off the M60 at Reddish. Any 8 items plus Tropicana orange juice for £4.25 was an acceptable part of the day. We were concerned for the later safety of the group though as Richard failed to navigate his way out of the Tesco store to the car park. And then I failed to navigate the car back onto the M60 and needed a second attempt.

   

Jimmy then took over navigation, and while he was not up to his usual form either, he did manage to get us safely to the parking spot up the lane out of Barley. Richard informed us that he normally parks in the village, so this would be an unusually short walk up Pendle Hill for him. Especially when you consider that village is Prestbury.

It was time to strike out for the hill, so the five of us kitted up and set off along the farm track. At the junction, a glance to the left revealed that the more graded path had not benefited from any groundwork, so we would, as usual, turn right and follow the standard ascent up the well-maintained, surfaced and often stepped path. The PROW straight ahead up the very steep gradient was not considered, except as a short-lived joke.

   

The was a stiff breeze blowing, and it was very cold. Therefore, we were all surprised when Liam repeatedly wanted to layer down. None of the rest of us even considered such a tactic!  We reached the wall, which is about 10m inside the AZ, but turned left to attain the summit anyway. It did not take long to assess the wind and potential (lack of) shelter in the summit area, before all turning back to the wall. The map clearly showed this area to be within the 540m contour, so we could use the tall wall as effective shelter, and be assured that we were well within the AZ.

Richard G3CWI was already QRV on his flea-power 30m CW PP3 set-up, and extending his much-cherished World Record with a further 22 QSOs. I think his wife keeps replacing that battery with a new one when he is not looking! Richard had completed his activation while Edward, Jimmy and myself were still setting up our respective stations, and got on with his second planned activity of being the summit chef.

His combination of freshly fried burgers, onions, mushrooms and butter on soft white bread (hang on, sounds like a John Shuttleworth song) was really quite delicious. Just a pity that the melting point of butter was not accurately estimated by our summit physicist. Resulting effect was a delicious summit feast, and a Berghaus jacket covered in butter.  I can hardly wait to find out what Richard's next SOTA-related proof-of-concept experiment will be! My flask of mulligatawny soup was put to shame, although it was nonetheless enjoyed by all partakers.

Being on the north side of the summit wasn't the optimum for Jimmy and Edward's VHF activation, but using HTs and SOTA Beam they made 7 and 4 QSOs respectively on 2m FM. Jumping on the recent upsurge in 10m band conditions, I erected the MM10 groundplane antenna. After a slow start, I made 28 contacts on 10m CW, including a couple into the USA (including registered chasers - thanks guys) and a very pleasing QSO into CO - Cuba.

I tried a couple of calls on 10m SSB and 10m FM, but without success. I didn't self-spot because Richard was keen to get off the hill. By the time I had packed away, Richard and Liam had commenced their descent. I met them at the car, closely followed by Jimmy and Edward. But Ed was concerned that he had lost the helical antenna from his HT. Fortunately, he found it just by the cattle grid at the start of the farm track.

Post-match refreshments were at the Pendle Inn in Barley, and featured the sour fruity Pride of Pendle ale and the altogether more bodied ale from Beartown Brewery, Congleton. When Jimmy attempted to buy another drink at 2.57pm, he was told that they had closed at 3pm. When it was pointed out that it was not yet 3pm, they stated that we all had to be out by 3pm, so they couldn't serve. Disappointing.

Moods lifted when Liam tried to responsibly dispose of his pork scratchings packet. "Where's tha bin?" he called. "Up Pendle Hill as well you know son" I replied, impressed that my 14 year old son had nailed Lancashire dialect so quickly.

A call at a garden centre/farm shop/tea rooms sort of place near Bury saw us all stocking up on coffee cake, strawberry and black pepper jam, pheasant pate and brownies to take home. The rest of the drive home was grotty in Manchester rush-hour traffic, but we got there and agreed it had been a day well spent, even if waiting another day would have returned 5 activator points instead of 2!