If you've been following the blog you'll already know that we seem to visit this area of the Yorkshire Dales on a regular basis, but usually have our time filled with looking after walkers and fell runners. Pen-Y-Ghent being the first hill of the Three Peaks they go up, it's a short turn and one I've not managed to be allocated. It seems it's suitable for those who can get out of their tent early and be off duty and back to base camp by lunchtime. Normally I seem to have Whernside or Ingleborough to deal with,
The technical bit from up here is really using VHF radio, in the 2m (144 - 146MHz) band, you can get quite a distance from here. There were two of us operating this time, giving a chance to use two different modes. This was Dave's first activation, he passed his exam in December and he'd been used to watching me use the radio. He did get a one more contact than myself (12 as against 11),
Dave was using an FM handheld with 5W (Yaesu FT-60) and a better than stock item antenna on it, even so he did get more than 100 miles (160km) with it nicely into North Wales. I was using my little antique FT-290R with 2.5W on SSB and an HB9CV antenna (seen resting on wall in picture) so had about 10W erp, and did get into Central England although propagation was a bit up and down. Well, being 694m ASL sort of helps.
The weather didn't help, it was probably close to freezing and there was about a 30mph/50kmh wind up there which made it feel chilly. An hour and a half up there was quite enough time.
We did create some interesting questions by members of the public whilst up there, who seemed quite surprised that you could be talking such a distance with modest equipment. We both clocked up our activation on the SOTA website and are happy with the 7 points we've earned.
It made a nice change from doing either Whernside or Ingleborough, this is also the easiest to get up, if you go from Dale Head that is.
