Garway Hill Hike - G/WB-013 SOTA (2020)

Summits on the Air Activation Report

Activation Date: Monday 25th May, 2020.
Activator(s): Richard M1HAX.
Summit: Garway Hill, Welsh Borders, England.
Summit ID: SOTA reference G/WB-013 (1 point).
Summit Height: 366m elevation, 267m prominence.
Summit Location: Lat./Long. 51.92128, -2.82029. Maidenhead Grid IO81ow.
Distance: 2.5km travelled with 100m of ascent.
Difficulty: SAC Grade T1.^(?)
Elapsed Time: 1hr 55m (including operating).
Weather: Feels like 23.3°C, 11 kph WSW wind, 40% humidity.
Radio Equipment: Yaesu FT891, Linked Dipole, Zippy 8400mAh 4S LiFePo4. Yaesu FTM100D, MFJ-1714, Zippy 4200mAh 4S LiFePo4.
Callsign Used: M1HAX/P.
Contacts: 32 (20m SSB, 2m FM).

Trip Notes

Garway Hill is a prominent hill located in Herefordshire, England. It is part of the Welsh Marches and lies near the border between England and Wales. The hill is known for its scenic beauty and stunning views over the surrounding countryside. At its summit, which reaches a height of 366 metres, there is hexagonal pillbox type structure with some seating benches.

This small one-point summit is an easy walk with paths to the summit from multiple sides. I chose to approach from the east. There is a rocky uneven track leading up to the start of the footpath, but I chose to stay on the tarmac and parked at the T-junction where there is a grass verge with space for a couple of vehicles.

I followed the rocky track up to where others had parked and then passed through a gate on to the open hillside. An easy and obvious grassy path leads straight up to the summit area. On a clear day there are great views of the surrounding countryside and hills.

As this is an easy hill to summit, and given the lovely spring weather, I brought my Yaesu FT891 and linked dipole setup along to make some HF contacts. After about an hour I had made over thirty contacts, mostly on the 20-metre band, including a pleasant summit to summit chat with Marco DD6FM/P on DM/RP-433 Rehberg in Germany.

After answering some enquiries from local walkers about what I was doing, I packed away the station, returning the way I had walked up, back to the car.

Photos

Below are some photographs taken during my activation of Garway Hill on Monday 25th May, 2020.

Walking Route for Garway Hill

The interactive map below shows my GPS track taken to the SOTA activation zone for Garway Hill. The G/WB-013 summit area is marked on the map with a blue pin icon.

You can download the route shown above as a GPX file suitable for use with most GPS devices. This file is provided for information only, to support your own walk planning and research (it may contain navigation errors, detours and/or safety hazards). The route downloads provided here are governed by the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.

Station Log

I logged the following 32 amateur radio contacts operating as M1HAX/P from G/WB-013 Garway Hill on Monday 25th May, 2020 (all times shown are UTC):

In the notes field I will usually log the other operator’s name and the signal report they provided. In accordance with the Summits on the Air rules, I do not make a log entry where a complete exchange of callsigns and signal reports was unsuccessful.

Additional Information

The following resources may be helpful to walkers, mountaineers and SOTA activators interested in Garway Hill:

• Sotl.as Summit Page for G/WB-013 Garway Hill.
• Hill Bagging UK Summit Page for Garway Hill.
• Google Earth view of Garway Hill.
• Wikipedia entry for Garway Hill.

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