Walbury Hill, G/SE-001 - 297m ASL - SU 373 616 - OS Explorer 158 - 1 SOTA point        

An impromptu short family break away in Hampshire soon had Jimmy M3EYP eyeing up opportunities to visit and activate the four G/SE summits he had been up before - prior to getting his licence, and hence all on the "reactivate" list.

       

After many years of endless rain and flooding, it was suddenly a rather pleasant day as we headed south on Tuesday 31st July 2007. I telephoned the timber merchants to cancel my order for my Ark Project, and agreed with The Boss that it would be a good idea to activate Walbury Hill on the journey. After reaching Newbury on the A34, Jimmy navigated us through the country lanes to the west, and up to the parking area.

We walked up the gently rising stony track to its highest point, from where we could see the old hanging post in the distance. We climbed over the gate and ambled along the track to the trig point, adjacent to which is a large area of flat concrete on the ground, rather convenient for bedding down for operating.

       

We used the FT-817 running 5 watts into the SOTA Beam mounted on the fishing pole. Despite the self spot, response was zilch, and we began to consider resetting for 2m SSB or HF. However, a net of four local stations was discovered further down the 2m band, so we took the easy option of crashing this and each working down the net. Marianne had hinted she wanted to go anyway, and the hayfever was becoming unbearable.

Many thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with 5 watts:

We completed our journey down to the Travel Inn at Winchester Services on the M3, and realised that its location on one side only of the motorway, with no bridge or local access road, would mean an extra 12 miles driving each night just to attain the correct side of the carriageway. We cancelled the 2nd, 3rd and 4th nights of our stay and booked instead into the Travelodge at Eastleigh.

The evening was rounded off with a barbecue at Marianne's sister's house in Chandlers Ford. Jimmy had one of his target four summits, and was now looking towards the two hills on the Isle of Wight.