Butser Hill, G/SE-004 - 240m ASL - SU 717 203 - OS Explorer 120 - 1 SOTA point        

Although we were pleased to have fairly easily qualified the activations so far, we were well aware that with XYL-imposed time restrictions, they were not particularly impressive or satisfying radio-wise. With Marianne decreeing "Picnic on Butser Hill" before our journey home on Saturday 4th August 2007, we had an opportunity to partly redress this.

I was up with the larks on our day of departure, but Marianne, Liam and Jimmy all decided to have a lie-in. So my day started with a solitary three hours in the car, listening to the sound of silence on 2m and the suicide-inspiring melancholy musings on "The Very Best of The Smiths" (bargain at �5 from Gosport Woolworths), punctuated by a walk down to the local Tesco Extra for a breakfast sandwich, drink and newspaper.

     

Eventually, the three sleepy-heads emerged, enabling me to check-out, and drive over to the big Asda hypermarket where we jointly compiled our picnic. Jimmy then navigated us on a long drive through Bishops Waltham, and eventually up to the car park on Butser Hill (�1 for all day parking).

We collected all the radio stuff and picnic stuff and climbed the remainder of the hill (the car park is pretty high up!) to a large firm grassy area just before (and about 5m lower than) the true summit. It was a clear, sunny and scorchingly hot afternoon.

   

This time, we didn't even bring a 2m aerial, or even our handhelds up with us. We set up the 40m dipole, and I went straight to work on CW on 7.032MHz, while Marianne and the boys kicked off with the picnic. Once the initial pile-up was cleared, I found a relatively clear spot on 7.079MHz and got Jimmy to self-spot on there. At last, a bit of success on 40m SSB, and Jimmy was absolutely delighted at working his first ever contacts into Germany and Belgium.

   

Just as we were about to pack up, we noticed a car and large beam aerial on the horizon, up near the trig point. Upon investigation, it was Bob G8VOI, preparing for the 2m six hour contest. We had a chat with him before returning to pack our gear up.

Job done, and we could get on the road back to Macc. Jimmy got his four out of four target summits.  Many thanks to the following stations, all worked on 40m with 5 watts: