Tom Read - click to email meBDXC ISWL WAB SOTA RSGB IOTA - see my radio page for more detailsLiam & Jimmy

Shobdon Hill 2006

 

From Wapley Hill G/WB-016, it was a very short drive, no more than five minutes, to the small village of Byton.  We parked up by the house at the end of the cul-de-sac at SO 371 638, and set off up the Mortimer Trail through the woods.  The path soon climbed out of the trees and ascended a ridge with good views to the North West direction.  The last time we were here, it was a fourth and final summit of the day, and with Jimmy's younger brother Liam in tow.  While first commenting on how faster we were able to progress without Liam in the party, we then began to pontificate on just how we had only managed to add the trivial Hegdon Hill G/WB-023 today, to the four we did with Liam last year.  The answer of course lay in the time taken to achieve four contacts on both Hergest Ridge G/WB-008 and Bradnor Hill G/WB-011, and the time taken to retrieve the dropped camera on the former.

Jimmy finds the true summit of Shobdon        Close up of the tiny summit cairn on Shobdon Hill

Once again, Jimmy's first priority was to find the true summit for this hill.  A large activation zone sits atop a large heavily forested plateau, so I was not optimistic of his desire, but he suddenly called me over to a tiny cairn he had found just inside the tree line as indicated by the map.  Success, but the day was late and the light beginning to fade, so we quickly adjourned to a bench seat with a west-facing view to set up the radio station.

SOTA Beam & M1EYP    Jimmy M3EYP/P operating on Shobdon Hill G/WB-017    SOTA Beam on WB-017

This time the activation took just over forty minutes.  It was certainly proving difficult to get the contacts rolling today, but we had selected the anticipated tougher summits to do in the first days of our trip, so reasoned that it would get easier tomorrow.  Unable to find other activity or generate interest from CQ calls, we were hosted on 145.550MHz by the regulars of a weekly Thursday night net in this area.  This included Sidney MW0CBI who proudly told us that he was 99 years of age.  Jimmy and I were both impressed and delighted with this.  He was joined by his friend John MW5AGS, a mere boy at 83 years old.  We were patient, and the other two contacts eventually came.

Many thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with 2.5 watts:

MW0CBI Presteigne Sidney T, J
MW5AGS Bleddfa John T, J
G4IIA Pembridge Mike T, J
G8NOD Pembridge Mike T, J

We were back at the car at  around 7.50pm, and began to drive into Ludlow, our intended stopping-over point for tonight.  There weren't any youth hostels in the immediate vicinity, so I was gambling on finding a B&B with a vacancy.  Initial enquiries drew blanks, but one of the full establishments kindly gave me a brochure full of telephone numbers.  Working my way down the list with Jimmy's mobile 'phone, I eventually managed to secure us a bed for the night.  This was a short distance across town, but through a complicated one way system.  The landlord kindly dictated a set of directions, which I wrote down for later.  He assured me it was fine for us to turn up late, so we parked up and made straight for a rather excellent looking Indian restaurant.  It was indeed excellent, and we enjoyed a fine meal in there, before retreating to the B&B for some shut-eye ahead of our attempt on Ludlow's local summit High Vinnalls G/WB-012, first thing in the morning.