Once again, summer has been a quiet month for me on the radio. Completing my POTA challenge made me think I should have a break from HF for a bit, but even on VHF I’ve only been out three times since: Field Day, 145 Alive, and a bonus trip up Nine Barrow Down in July. In August, the only time I used amateur radio at all was for comms between the team at Hamfest.

But time has passed, and the seasons turn once again. Down by the coast the memory of summer lives on, but up on Lewesdon Hill today, autumn was in full swing.

A day trip to Devon and back provided the opportunity to head to this spot, the last of Dorset’s three SOTA summits that I had never activated. A strong wind whistling through the trees, all-encompassing fog and about 50m visibility made this an eerie one as well as a cold and damp one. I’ve activated the Shire before, but the steep wooded path leading up to Lewesdon Hill had a distinctly more Mirkwood vibe.

Despite our driest summer on record having only just ended, the way up was already damp and slippery, and I can well imagine that at any other time of year it will be a mudbath. In places, tree roots mercifully provide steps and grip, but this is definitely a hike you’ll want your boots for. Of course, we did it in trainers and jeans, because we are idiots.

Atop the hill there is plenty of antenna space, and with no-one else braving the weather to climb the hill today, we were for a moment the highest people in Dorset, stood atop its tallest peak.

We set up the inverted-V dipole for the 40m band, using my FT-891 at 100W powered from a 20Ah battery. Along with the camp chair, it’s around 8kg of kit—although the hill is steep, the walk up from Coombe Lane is less than a kilometre, so the pack weight didn’t cause us any trouble.

I had a few chatty QSOs before self-spotting, after which the pile-up came fast. It was a packed band, and I had occasional trouble trying to work out if I was the only station on frequency or whether there was another, with other people calling them. I also got crowded out by an S9+20 signal 1kHz down towards the end of the activation.

After half an hour and 24 in the log, the antenna was flapping in the rising winds, and fog was starting to soak us and our equipment alike. It never feels good to leave a pile-up in progress, but I decided to call it quits at that point, and start the slippery hike back down the hill towards home.

Thanks to all my contacts today, and sorry to those of you who waited patiently in the pile-up and I didn’t make it to. Hopefully I’ll catch you on the air on the next summit.