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I noticed today that Richard G1JTD had a GPS-equipped VX-8R with him on his activation of several Wainwright summits in the Fairfield round. I spoke to Richard on his VX-8R a fortnight or so ago when I was out with my VX-8GR and he mentioned that he might get the GPS option so as to do some APRS. It’s good to see more APRS activity from the Lakeland fells.

You can see Richard’s track captured from aprs.fi. As you can see, his position reports were only received when he was on the summits and a few other points on the highest parts of the ridge. This is inevitable given that the only digipeaters and iGates are situated around the edge of the mountains located at the homes of amateurs and not at any great height.

From my experience it’s quite common to lose cellular data coverage once you get off the beaten track so smartphone based APRS isn’t really much better in this situation. Running the GPS drastically shortens the phone’s battery life so you are also likely to end up with a dead phone just when you might need it. I think RF based tracking is the best solution for taking APRS into the wilds.

It’s a pity that the power requirement and antenna size for HF operation would make it impractical to use HF for portable APRS operation.

I came a little closer to my objective of trying to make a DX contact using only a hand-held radio this afternoon. After dropping Olga off in town for a hair appointment I went up to my usual haunt Watch Hill accompanied my my 2m and 10m hand-helds. I had just stopped on the top when I heard Geoff G4WHA/P calling CQ WOTA from Kidsty Pike on the GP300 which was on my belt. He was a bit noisy as the radio only had the rubber duck on it so I foolishly decided to swap it for the 5/8 telescopic before calling him. Unfortunately in the minute or so it took to swap over the antennas I lost him and didn’t hear him call again.

Colin 2E0XSD called me and we had a brief chat, then I made several other calls hoping to catch Geoff or anyone else who happened to be listening. After about five minutes Colin called again to say that he was hearing activity on 10m FM. I got out the Intek with the 4 foot whip and started listening around. I did hear some activity, including what sounded like a French station down in the noise on 29.600 who was not clearing the FM calling channel. I also heard what sounded like Russian on 29.620.

After numerous calls on 29.600 I heard a CQ from OK1AQW near Prague in the Czech Republic, loud and clear. I called him but he replied that I was too weak to copy. A couple of minutes later I started calling again and OK1AQW came back to me with my full callsign! I replied “OK1AQW this is G4ILO/P you are 55 in IO84 QSL?” but got no response from him. I repeated his report several times but heard nothing. I don’t know if a full 4W would have made a difference, but a couple of days ago I adjusted the full power level of the H-520 back to 2.5W to try to mitigate the problem of high current draw when the SWR is less than perfect. So that was a gotaway, unfortunately.

I didn’t hear any more DX on 10m, but I did have a QSO with Roger G0MWE from Dearham who was using a new FT-897D and pleased to hear some activity on 10m. Roger suggested I should use a better antenna which would certainly be possible to erect up there but that would defeat the object of using the hand-held. But I’m sure with perseverance I will eventually achieve my objective.

Colin, 2E0XSD, raised an interesting question this afternoon in the Wainwrights On The Air forum when he asked what the rules were regarding making contacts using APRS. I confess that I hadn’t thought about it and haven’t come to a conclusion at the moment.

For those who think that APRS is merely a way of using ham radio to transmit position reports that can be received and tracked I should explain that it is a lot more than that. One of its best features, if one that is not all that widely used, is the ability to send text messages to other APRS users. For example, if you see someone’s position on the map and would like to contact them on the radio you could send them a message to ask whether they are on the air and what frequency and mode they are using.

You could use APRS text messages to exchange exactly the same kind of information with another station that you might exchange in a normal digimode contact – signal report, name, QTH, locator and so on. This could arguably constitute a valid contact. But most of the time APRS users are not in direct radio contact with one another so the messages may be passed with the aid of digipeaters: stations that receive an APRS packet and rebroadcast it. Even more common these days is the use of internet gateways (IGates) that route messages between APRS stations via the internet. There are also an increasing number of APRS users who use mobile devices and the cellular network to send and receive APRS. So I have come to regard APRS as a kind of hybrid system that is not purely amateur radio and I do not regard conversations held using APRS messaging as radio contacts in the sense that I would log them, QSL them or use them to qualify for an operating award.

But that’s just me. If two people exchange APRS messages over RF with no digipeaters or IGates involved, is there any reason that this should not count as a contact?

I must confess to having mixed feelings about APRS. When I first found out about it I thought it was an extremely useful system and I still do. My wife Olga worries when I go walking in the hills on my own and likes being able to see where I am at any moment on a map on her computer. If I don’t return she will know my last position and could send someone to look for me. And it is a useful way to alert WOTA summit chasers to the fact that you are approaching a summit that you are going to activate. But I quickly became disappointed when I discovered that this functionality could not be achieved if you relied solely on amateur bands RF.

Then I discovered Lynn KJ4ERJ’s program APRSISCE which can run on a data enabled mobile phone and connect to the internet-based APRS infrastructure and I was able to get the kind of usage I envisaged from it. (In this part of the world even the cellular data coverage isn’t 100% but it is still a big improvement.) But although I now use the mobile client whenever I am on some radio related outdoor activity, I found that using an internet connected client destroyed the radio interest because I could now communicate using APRS with anyone, anywhere with the same kind of reliability as sending an SMS or an email.

APRS is too useful to hobble it by insisting on using only amateur bands RF as the transmission medium. Because of that I don’t feel it can be used to make contacts or QSOs in the sense that is generally accepted within the hobby and I’m not convinced that it would be right to make an exception for message exchanges that are “direct.” But I’d be interested in other people’s opinions on the matter.

In British English, a “cockup” is rude slang for a mistake, usually implying carelessness. Great Cockup is the name of a rather undistinguished grassy Wainwright summit near the northern edge of the English Lake District. I don’t think there is any connection between the slang meaning and the name of the hill. But whilst my decision to go for a walk up Great Cockup on Bank Holiday Monday wasn’t a mistake, from a radio point of view it wasn’t a success either.

I parked the car near Overwater and set off on quiet lanes and then a grassy track on the western side of the fell with great views over Bassenthwaite Lake.

The summit was reached after about an hour of walking. Despite being the end of May a cold north westerly breeze was very much in evidence on the summit. By descending a few feet it was possible to get away from the breeze, but as soon as it dropped clouds of black insects appeared and covered everything. It was necessary to brave the full force of the wind in order to eat the lunch Olga had prepared without an accompaniment of fresh insects. Despite this one managed to find its way inside the Intek H-520 – it was still walking around the inside of the display window this morning!

Lunch over, I got the radios out. I had taken the Intek H-520 hoping to make some DX contacts on 10 metres, but despite making numerous calls on the 10m FM calling frequency, 29.600MHz, I had no takers. There was obviously some enhanced propagation as I heard a French station and also some activity on a repeater on 29.660MHz.

I heard a French station call CQ on 29.600 and when I replied to him he said “UK stations, please QSY to 29.205MHz.” I was unable to oblige because a) my radio only tunes exact 10kHz multiples and b) when I did try to transmit anywhere near there the radio cut out due to the SWR being too high on that frequency. I’m afraid the H-520’s intolerance to even moderate SWR renders it almost unfit for purpose and if I hadn’t modified it to work on the 10m band I would probably consider returning it under warranty. As it is, probably the only option is to reset the power control to limit the power to 2W on the “4.0W” setting. As noted previously, when received the radio delivered less than 3.0W even on the UK CB band and I now suspect this was done deliberately by the manufacturer to try to mitigate this problem, knowing that the majority of CB users would be none the wiser.

While listening for the French station I heard what sounded like an APRS packet on 29.210MHz. I don’t know if that is a recognized APRS frequency but it would be interesting to monitor that frequency with a decoder to see what is being transmitted.

I tried the Motorola GP300 on 2m with the 5/8 telescopic antenna but was unable to raise any contacts on that band either. I did hear some activity on the channel set up for GB3EV but which I suspect may be the GB3BT repeater on the north east coast which is on the same frequency.

Back home I heard and worked Colin 2E0XSD/P who was on Ling Fell (behind the ‘hump’ on the left of the middle photograph) using the H-520 inside the shack with the 4ft. whip antenna. On 2m I worked Derek 2E0MIX/P who was up on Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain. So had I gone out a bit later I would probably have made not just a couple of contacts, but a couple of summit to summits. Never mind. It was a pleasant walk and now I have the excuse to go again another time.

This morning there was a lot of Sporadic-E about. I spotted – and was spotted by – several stations on 10 metres. I didn’t hear any normal activity on 10, but there was some on 6m and I made a couple of contacts. However the weather was gorgeous, too good to be indoors whatever the propagation, so I took some coffee, a sandwich, the Motorola GP300 and the Intek H-520 Plus and set off to do a couple of Wainwrights.

I parked in a lane between Mockerkin and Lamplugh and walked along the track above Hudson Place. You are high above Loweswater here and can enjoy some wonderful views for no climbing effort at all. Then it was up over the grassy fellside to Blake Fell (WOTA LDW-140.)

There was a strong, cold south westerly wind so I hunkered down in the stone wind break on the summit to have my lunch. A retired couple over from Newcastle joined me and wanted to chat, so it was not until they had gone that I was able to get the radios out. I put the telescopic 5/8 antenna on the GP300 but the wind was so strong it was blowing it almost horizontal so I switched to the helical. I was using the speaker mic, but no-one replied to my calls and I realized that the rig was not going to transmit. That was the first of my troubles.

Dispensing with the speaker mic I called CQ and made contact with Keith G0EMM in Workington. After we moved down to 145.450MHz we were joined by Colin 2E0XSD and Derek 2E0MIX.

The guys knew I had recently acquired a 10m FM H-520 hand held and anticipated that I would want to try using it. I decided it was too windy to try the 4 foot antenna so I used instead the short one that came with the rig. As soon as I pressed the PTT the rig shut down and re-started. Keith suggested there might be something wrong with the batteries, and that seemed to be the case as when I reduced power to 1 watt the rig didn’t shut down but the battery state indicator went from all bars to no bars. So that was the second of my troubles.

As per usual, I had my digital camera with me to try to take a picture, using the self timer, of me at the summit. But either I got only my legs, or only my head, or the wind moved the camera so the picture was blurred. After that, every picture I took with the timer was grossly over-exposed (although if I took a picture manually it was alright.) That was the third of my troubles, as a consequence of which you are spared a picture of G4ILO this post.

After that I set off for what I thought was Burnbank Fell (WOTA LDW-183). My target was a prominent summit with a large stone summit cairn, about 100m lower than Blake Fell. I reached it in about 20 minutes, put out another CQ call and was contacted by Keith and Colin. They had been tracking my position using APRS and informed me that it looked as if I was on Carling Knott. I was sure I wasn’t, as there is no other Wainwright summit in the area. Carling Knott isn’t a Wainwright, and the one I was on looked like a pretty important top that I’m sure Wainwright would have given a page in his Guide to the Western Fells.

I had hoped to descend from there down to the lake but I couldn’t find the path – the fourth of my troubles – so I ended up re-tracing my steps, though avoiding the actual summits to save a bit of climbing. As I walked back over the grassy hill over which I had walked a couple of hours earlier I put out another call on 2m and was answered by Keith and Colin again, who both confirmed that my APRS position now put me on Burnbank Fell! So this featureless grassy hillock that I had barely noticed on the way up is actually a Wainwright, while the higher Carling Knott with its impressive summit cairn isn’t. I’m sure AW had his reasons…

Back at the shack I found there was nothing wrong with the H-520’s batteries, but it doesn’t seem to like the short whip antenna, which of course I never tested it with before I went out. If I had been able to use the four footer it would probably have been fine. The GP300 worked perfectly with the speaker mic, and I couldn’t reproduce the problem with the camera self-timer either. As for activating the wrong fell – I guess I should look at the map a bit more closely.

But it was still a gorgeous day and a wonderful walk, even if it was a bit windy and Murphy was my invisible companion.

The objective of today’s walk was Fellbarrow, a minor Wainwright fell WOTA number LDW-199 in the North Western Fells. It had never been activated before and I thought it would be an easy walk, so off I went.

I set off along the lane that goes behind Whin Fell. By a field gate I was checking the map to see if this was where I turned off the lane to go up on to the fells, and someone walked by and asked if I was lost. I said I was just checking to see if this was the way to Fellbarrow and he said yes, you can go that way, so I did. After about 15 or 20 minutes of walking I found that I was at the far end of a large field surrounded by a dry stone wall with barbed wire on either side and no way I could see to go any further.

Eventually I did find a place where the wall had fallen down and it was possible to negotiate the barbed wire, only tearing my walking trousers a little bit. I carried on but found the directions I thought I needed to go blocked by walls and gates.

The trouble with these grassy minor fells is that they don’t look very distinctive so they aren’t obvious targets to aim for, and they are infrequently walked so there is no obvious path to follow. Basically, I was lost. APRSISCE on my mobile phone was no help as the mapping it uses contains no topographical detail at all. I tried Google Maps but it informed me that there was no network coverage so it couldn’t download any maps. I plodded on until I saw a path that descended into the valley and I decided to stop, have my lunch and go back.

After lunch I decided I would follow some tyre tracks up hill just to see where they went. After about 5 minutes I saw a stile in the fence and a path. I followed this and after a couple more stiles found myself on the top of Fellbarrow with its Ordnance Survey trig point.

I got out the Motorola GP300, made a couple of calls on 145.500 FM and was answered by Colin 2E0XSD. However despite a take-off that covered Whitehaven, the Isle of Man, Workington, Cockermouth and the Dumfries and Galloway area of Scotland I got no other responses. I checked the repeaters and heard Richard MI6BJG/P putting a call into the GB3GI repeater. He was walking into Belfast with a hand held radio and we had a chat for a few minutes until he started dropping out of the repeater. I also heard a repeater GB3BT on the channel marked for GB3EV, which I later found is at Berwick on the north-east coast.

I still couldn’t raise anyone on FM simplex, so I decided to come back. The return route was a bit easier and used the path I should have taken if I had walked for another 5 minutes beyond the point that I was misdirected. I think I need GPS software with OS maps on my HTC Touch.

Just over a year ago I started Wainwrights On The Air (WOTA) as an adventure radio scheme to encourage people like myself to get out of the shack and up in the hills (or fells as they are known locally) of the English Lake District for a bit of fun with radio. You collect points by making contacts from the tops of the fells (which is called activating.) Armchair fellwalkers can also collect points by working stations on the tops of the fells (which is called chasing.) Certificates are awarded when you have made contacts from (or with) all of the fells in each of Alfred Wainwright’s seven Pictorial Guides, and for completing all 214 Wainwright fells.

WOTA has been more successful at getting other people out on the fells than me. To date, Phil G4OBK has been the most active WOTA activator and has already claimed a certificate for activating all of the fells in the Pictorial Guide to the Eastern Fells. He has stated that he intends to do all the Wainwrights within two years. Now he has started a blog to describe his progress towards completing this challenge.

Called “Wainwrights On The Air”, Phil’s blog has details of the routes taken as well as the people contacted from the fells. It has some great pictures, too, that really capture the flavour of this beautiful part of England.

If you like operating radio from the great outdoors, if you are interested in the English Lake District or if you are thinking about becoming a WOTA activator yourself, I think you’ll enjoy Phil’s Wainwrights On The Air blog.