May Hill Hike - G/WB-019 SOTA (2020)

Summits on the Air Activation Report

Activation Date: Sunday 24th May, 2020.
Activator(s): Richard M1HAX.
Summit: May Hill, Welsh Borders, England.
Summit ID: SOTA reference G/WB-019 (1 point).
Summit Height: 296m elevation, 217m prominence.
Summit Location: Lat./Long. 51.88919, -2.44389. Maidenhead Grid IO81sv.
Distance: 2.3km travelled with 73m of ascent.
Difficulty: SAC Grade T1.^(?)
Elapsed Time: 2hr 45m (including operating).
Weather: Feels like 21.1°C, 11 kph WNW wind, 49% humidity.
Radio Equipment: Yaesu FT891, Linked Dipole, Zippy 8400mAh 4S LiFePo4. Yaesu FTM100D, MFJ-1714, Zippy 4200mAh 4S LiFePo4.
Callsign Used: M1HAX/P.
Contacts: 56 (20m SSB, 2m FM).

Trip Notes

• May Hill is a notable hill located between Gloucester and Ross-on-Wye in England. Its summit is on the western edge of Gloucestershire and its northern slopes are in Herefordshire. It has a distinguishable clump of hills around its summit. May Hill can be accessed by three public footpaths, two of which form parts of the Gloucestershire Way and Wysis Way. Morris dancers perform on the hill’s summit every May Day, accompanied by a ceremony that dates back several centuries. The summit of May Hill is a 32.6-hectare Site of Special Scientific Interest for its biological and geological features.
• This is another of the quick and easy one-point SOTA hills around the Hereford and Gloucester area which I have been walking this month.
• I parked on Yartleton Lane to the west of the summit. From here an obvious and easy footpath leads directly up the grassy hillside to the summit.
• There is a trig point at the summit beyond the coppice of tall trees. On a sunny day it is very pleasant to sit on the benches within the trees and enjoy the views.
• Making the most of the fine weather I had decided to bring my Yaesu FT891 and SOTABeams linked dipole antenna setup to activate the hill on HF. After making some local contacts on the 2m band I worked on the 20m band for about two hours. I made some interesting summit to summit contacts with operators on Hochwacht HB/AG-012, Punkt 1240 bei Walenmattweid HB/SO-022 and Potzberg DM/RP-432.
• After answering some questions from some curious dog walkers, I packed away my station and returned back down the hill to the car. This is a very pleasant small hill and one which I would thoroughly recommend checking out.

Photos

Below are some photographs taken during my activation of May Hill on Sunday 24th May, 2020.

Walking Route for May Hill

The interactive map below shows my GPS track taken to the SOTA activation zone for May Hill. The G/WB-019 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 56 amateur radio contacts operating as M1HAX/P from G/WB-019 May Hill on Sunday 24th 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 May Hill:

• Sotl.as Summit Page for G/WB-019 May Hill.
• Hill Bagging UK Summit Page for May Hill.
• Google Earth view of May Hill.
• Wikipedia entry for May Hill.

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