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

Urra Moor-Round Hill 2006

 

From our parking spot south of Gisborough Moor G/TW-003, we drove around to Clay Bank car park, the parking spot between Urra Moor-Round Hill G/TW-001 and Cringle Moor-Drake Howe G/TW-002.  It is a fair old undulating way to TW-002 from here, but it is a good access point for TW-001, albeit a stiff climb, particularly at the start. In the car park, we met Geoff G0VAP who was out and about on his North Yorks Moors ranger duties.  He mentioned that he had met Steve G1INK on summits in this area in the past, and made a promise to work us when we reached the summit ourselves.

A short walk up the road towards Chop Gate was followed by a left turn into the field and the Cleveland Way national trail path.  Shortly, we were climbing the steep stone steps up to the edge of the wide Urra Moor plateau.   The hard work was out of the way, but we now had a 2km walk across the gently ascending moor to the summit of Round Hill.  Along the way, we met some of the Coast 2 Coast walkers that had stayed at Osmotherley Youth Hostel with us. Yet again, it was very cold and very windy at the summit, and shelter was difficult to find.  We did as best as we could by sitting down in the lee side of the summit, about 15 yards from the trig point. 

    Tom on the summit of Urra Moor - Round Hill        Jimmy on Urra Moor-Round Hill - but where has the trig point gone?

The SOTA Beam was set up, and we immediately heard a crackly but readible 51 signal from Adam M3HWG/P on Kirkby Moor G/LD-049.  He was clearly coming to the end of his activation, so after his final contact I made a tentative call to see (a) if he could hear me and (b) if he wanted a S2S contact with G/TW-001.  Throwing my full 5 watts in a westerly direction, both were the case, and that was a very pleasing contact.  Adam was accompanied by his dad Alan M3FZK/P, and both Jimmy and I worked both Adam and Alan to get us to the halfway point.  The next station was the earlier promised contact from Geoff G0VAP/M, now on Hasty Bank, and the 5 watts was reduced to 0.5 watts as I maintained a watching brief on the remaining charge.  The low power was then more than sufficient to bring in a couple more stations to more than qualify the activation.  We had now given up on 2m SSB having got the message from the previous three activations!

    Liam on Urra Moor            Jimmy on Urra Moor summit

We now had to make a choice.  Either move onto Cringle Moor-Drake Howe G/TW-002 for a late activation followed by a late tea in the pub, or call it a day and go straight to the Youth Hostel for a shower and a three course meal.  Jimmy and Liam both voted the same way, rendering useless my "casting" vote, although I was going to join them in voting for the Youth Hostel dinner anyway! Breaded mushrooms, Beef in beer with new potatoes and Chocolate fudge pudding vindicated our choice, following which Jimmy and myself sat down to bring our logbooks up to date.  After Jimmy and Liam went to bed, I sat for a chat with some Coast 2 Coast walkers and other hikers.  There was a police officer, an MRT volunteer, an ambulance service member amongst the group, which also included someone with very right wing views and someone with very left wing views.  The debate was lively, and lubricated by the excellent range of bottled ales served by the Youth Hostel.  Eventually all the others retired to bed, leaving me to adjourn to the TV room to watch one of ITV's World Cup build-up programmes.  

Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM:

M3HWG/P Kirkby Moor LD-049 Adam 5 watts T, J
M3FZK/P Kirkby Moor LD-049 Alan 5 watts T, J
G0VAP/M Hasty Bank Geoff 0.5 watts T, J
G8YDC Nunthorpe John 0.5 watts T, J
M0TPS Leeds Daz 0.5 watts T