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Callow Hill, WB-015 - 334m ASL - SO 459 849 - OS Explorer 217 - 1 SOTA point This summit was activated on Thursday 24th July 2003, by myself, accompanied as usual by Jimmy & Liam. We set off from Macc and took the M6 down to J15, the A53 through Market Drayton towards Shrewsbury, and then the A49 south towards Craven Arms, around which our intended three hills lie. After Church Stretton, we found the Lazy Trout transport café on the right near the village of Marshbrook, and this did the trick for lunch. We turned left signpost Strefford, and followed the road around left through the village of Lower Dinchope. Now driving in a NE direction, we came to the sharp double bend in the road (SO 456 854), off which the path went to the SE. There was plenty of space here to leave the car, and we headed on up the path. As you get into the woods, you can either go straight up, or bear left for a longer but more gradual climb. We went straight up, but will bear left in future! It was incredibly steep, and without the assistance of rocks underfoot, just moist soil and grass. There were at least a few trees to hang on to, but even these were a nuisance to duck under with the rucksack. Getting Jimmy & Liam safely up this bank was hard work and quite stressful, and reminded me of my Raw Head nightmare last year! But up it we got, and just to the right was the tower / folly, fenced off with danger signs reporting it to be an "unsafe structure". We explored for a little while and continued to the adjacent field in which we could just about see the trig point, three quarters obscured by the hedge, and not really worth a closer look. Indeed the true summit is at the tower anyway, so we returned there and set up the SOTA Beam, FT817, took a few photos and completed the activation.
Uncannily, the exact same four stations I worked from Long Mynd/Pole Bank WB-005 a couple of months previous (G4OYX, G3RDC, M3FRJ & M3XTL), were worked from Callow Hill, with the addition of Tony G0SKG from Dudley. We descended Callow Hill via the longer (but not that long at all!) less steep route and got back in the car to drive down to View Edge WB-018. Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m. The first one was with 2.5 watts on FM, and the next two on SSB with the same power. The final two QSOs were back on 2m FM, but using 1 watt of power.
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