Staveley Fell LDO-084

I’ve started using a Garmin Vivoactive 3 smart watch, so tracking is display slightly differently this time around. This was a quick walk in between taxi duties for the kids.

Equipment

2m FM QSOs

RIG: Yaesu FT-817ND
ANT: Spectrum Communications Slim-G
PWR: 5w
Case: PowerPort WorldPouch for FT-817

All power connections standardized using PowerPole connectors.

Other

Logging: Rite in the Rain 4x6 Notebook and STAEDTLER Noris HB Pencil
Rucksack: Lowe Alpine Airzone Trek 45:55
Phone/Camera: Xiaomi Redmi Note 8T
Water 500ml
Clothing: Shorts and lightweight jacket.
Footwear: Salomon X Ultra 3 Prime GTX

Safety

Garmin Connect Tracking

image
image
image

An interactive version of this data should be available via the Garmin Connect Activity Log.

Staveley Fell

WOTA ID: LDO-084 Height: 265 m (869 ft)
SOTA ID: n/a Grid ref: SD389868
HuMP ID: n/a QTH Locator: IO84MG
Book: The Outlying Fells Lat: 54.273036 Long: -2.938374

image

Staveley Fell is at the South end of Lake Windermere, immediately South of my go-to SOTA summit Gummer’s How.

We parked up in the nearest space to the Gummer’s How path and crossed the road and took the path through the woods to Sow How Lane. It is a quick 5 minute walk along the lane to the Forestry Gate, and then on to the forestry track.


Walk through the woods to Sow How Lane


Gummer’s How is the most prominent summit in this area


Forestry Track


Some very tall trees!

I took a look on the map and we tried to spot an obvious path up to the summit from the track. The path we ended up taking was pretty rubbish and we had to traverse a couple of the small summits. Thankfully the bracken is starting to die back, and it wasn’t quite the epic that we had on Bigland Barrows recently.


Our summit approach


A very colourful fungi


Small pile of Cairn Stones

I have decided to do most activations using the FT-817 with the Slim-J, unless the wind has other ideas. This choice paid dividends today with Geoff first in the log - as surprised as I was that we had made the QSO between his Annan QTH and this very Southerly Wainwright!

Time Call Band Freq Mode Grid Country Operator Name
18:20 GM4WHA 2m 145.550 FM IO84ix Scotland GEOFF HARPER
18:23 G8CPZ 2m 145.550 FM JJ00aa England Andy Barth
18:25 G7CDA 2m 145.550 FM IO83qt England Douggie G7CDA
18:26 G6LKB 2m 145.550 FM IO84ke England David WARBURTON
18:28 G1OHH 2m 145.550 FM IO84ob England Susan Griffin
18:30 2E0XYL 2m 145.550 FM IO83lg England Karen Richardson

Following data provided by the Solwise Wireless Elevation Tool.


GM4WHA to Staveley Fell

image
Elevation Profile!

Can’t work out how that happened, but great to get Geoff in the log! Other chasers were in the much more obvious Southerly direction. We took David’s (G6LKB) advice and found the wall he referred to which was a much easier walk back to the forestry track via a fairly obvious path.


Following the wall on the descent

I’ll take a read of Wainwright’s report of the summit, and try and pay better attention to advice before tackling fells, but it was a great mini-adventure.

Mark. M0NOM

2 Likes

Nice little hike and another ticked off Mark…Geoff does really good he must have a huge mast and beam :laughing:. Just started using garmin connect here the last few months with the 5x plus and it’s a great tool.
Keep up the good work I wonder if you’ve got and activations planned for the weekend :+1:

Hoping to get out Saturday Mike, Sunday is Brooke’s birthday so nothing until maybe the evening. We may be going to have a look at a car in Carlisle on Saturday, so would combine that with something more northerly :wink:
Regards, Mark.

1 Like

Hi Mike and Mark,

I wish i had a huge mast and beam!!! My main 2m aerial is a cheap 2m j-pole. I had an old roach pole which i taped up all the joins and then taped the j-pole to the roach pole. The roach pole is cable tied to a piece of wood which was screwed to a fence post. It is about 20 foot from top to ground. A very heath robinson affair but it works for me. I run 50 watts from either a Yaesu FT8900 OR FT-100M depending on mode of operation. I use an antennae switch to switch radios.

I was extremely surprised to hear Mark. It just shows radio signals do not travel in staright lines in the Lake District. I have worked many stations mobile when chasing for WOTA and when you look at the terrain profile (i use memory map) you wonder how on earth i worked them.

I made the distance just over 50 miles. Mind you i worked Mark on Gray Crag from the car on 5 watts and that was about 48 miles and there was alot of rock between us.

Thanks for the very unexpected contact.

73’s Geoff GM4WHA

1 Like

Wow Geoff, sounds like Heath Robinson would be very proud indeed of your setup! I thought I was bad with some of my attempts at antennas, but you’ve really upped the game! However, can’t argue with what works!

I’m hoping to get a decent antenna up before winter sets in, probably a Diamond X50, I have the ladders, and next pay day is looming, if there are any left in the country at the moment.

Cheers, Mark.