black hill g/sp-002
24rd February 2018 Black Hill - G/SP-002 - 582m ASL 2 points (plus 3 points winter bonus)
SE 078 047 - OS Explorer OL1
Day two and the second summit with Paul, G0KPH we set off from Buxton early to make the hour drive to Black Hill. We parked in the lay by (SE075072) and layered up - at the car the temperature was -3. We took the Pennine Way route all the way to the top taking around just over an hour of cautious trekking around the icy patches and up to the summit. On the way up all the puddles and grass was frozen solid (around an inch thick!) and at the summit it was even colder (around -6 / -8).
As mentioned previously in other blogs 2m is not good for the summit (0 contacts made after spotting online)
We setup the HF station around 20m from the trig. A 20-30-40m Sotabeams linked di-pole was our primary antenna and despite the poor sun spot cycle we made a combined contact count of around 50 over a few hours.
Did I mention it was cold?
It was a very enjoyable hike over a well maintained path over plenty of ice! 2m was a write off (including only 2 APRS spots during the whole afternoon). HF seemed to have good take off and we were pleased with the contacts made. Thanks to the chasers on 20/40m!