Tired: After-work POTA in April.

Wired: After-work SOTA in October!

The clocks have gone back, and evenings are drawing in. There won’t be many more opportunities to see daylight after work this year, so it was time for one last evening’s walk up Nine Barrow Down.

Specifically, I wanted to test out the alternative route up the hill from the lay-by near where the ice cream van parks in summer. All my previous trips up Nine Barrow Down started from Ulwell, and I don’t remember using this other route at all, even in my younger pre-SOTA days. But having compared it on a map, it’s a solid kilometer shorter, and with 60m less elevation gain, to reach my preferred radio operating spot on National Trust land. I was hoping this way would be much easier, but being partly wooded I worried it would be quite dark and gloomy, so I wanted a proper shot at it in daylight first.

Previous route (red) vs new route (yellow)

It turned out to be much easier. The forest is only a small section and even then is relatively open. Then, with little fanfare, you come out right in the field where I operate from. I’ll definitely be picking this route in future—the only problem is that in summer, parking will be at a premium. There’s a tiny space for two cars right by the bottom of the trail, and space for about 10 where the ice cream van sits, but if you’re out of luck on those two, there’s no other parking nearby.

The main goal of the evening achieved, I set up the 40m inverted-V dipole on the SOTAbeams pole, and plugged in the IC-705. With only 10 watts on a weekday I wasn’t expecting a great deal, but the contacts came thick and fast, and by the time the sun started to set half an hour later, I had 23 in the log.

And with only a 15 minute walk back to the car, I made it well before the last light of the day disappeared behind the hill.

There are a couple of VHF contests still left in the year, so next time I head up Nine Barrow Down the “easy” way I’ll bring the big pole along for the ride, and grab my last good shots at some 2m SSB action this year.

Thanks to all my contacts today, catch you next time!