Saturday 16th February, Tally-Ho!

The training for training continues….

The opportunity to go “running through cow fields (and other cow things) in all weathers and conditions just for the fun of it” was not to be missed, so just before 2pm I set off to follow the sawdust trail laid by Mark Taylor and Tommy Markham. The weather was good: sunshine, warm – a pleasant change compared to the weather we had been enduring of late.
Today’s pub was an old favourite of the Cheshire Tally-Ho!, The Cross Keys at Uppermill, on the western edge of the Saddleworth Moors. I ran most of the route with Ian J – he was suffering from the back-end of a very bad cold so I thought there might be a chance I could keep up with him.

Ian running up Pots & Pans 

Running (Ho-ho!) south to climb up the local tourist honey-pot hill, Pots & Pans, was relatively easy – the ground was reasonably dry and the gradient not too steep. The views were good:
  Every ascent has a descent and our descent took us down to Dovestones Reservoir. The track was a little tricky and even with fell-running shoes I kept slipping and sliding until we got down to the bottom.

On Alderman’s Hill, above Dovestone’s Reservoir

 Dovestone’s from the dam

Continuing south, following the eastern edge of the reservoir and on good tracks, we headed to the half-way point of the trail – a footbridge across the stream that runs through Chew Valley.

It was here that some of the faster hounds caught us up:

As is often the case when following trail in company, chatting too much leads to losing the trail – even when the trails is laid as well as this one. After a good 2-3 minutes of yakking….we were lost. Well not quite lost, but we were certainly off the trail. Fortunately we had half an idea of  where the route should go and we followed our instincts – which proved to be correct.

Although the photo above shows a well-surfaced track, it wasn’t long before we we running over more typical Tally-Ho ground:

It wasn’t all as bad, and by the time Rob caught us up we were back on half-decent tracks again: 

You’ll notice that all the other runners were catching us up. In our defence, Ian and I weren’t 100%…..mind you, even if I was 100% I don’t think I’d have done much better!

Not far from the end now 

Tally-Ho! trails always feature a dinner after the run. Prior to dinner we get cleaned up and changed. Use of the club’s tin bath is the preferred method of getting clean – it certainly encourages runners to get round the route as quickly as possible – those who finish late suffer rather gritty bath water:

It was a good run – a bit heavy on tarmac, but to be honest that suited me today. I’m completely out of condition and an easy run was just what I needed.

A good dinner of meat & potato pie with mushy peas and red cabbage, followed by fruit pie and custard refuelled the runners very satisfactorily. Rehydration was made possible by consuming vast amounts of well-kept John-Willie Lees….not for me though, I was driving.

Hungry runners waiting to be fed 

8.5 miles with around 1800’ of ascent. Good.

Thanks go to Tommy Markham and Mark Taylor for a very well-laid trail.

14th February, Valentine Venture

Knackered knees, amongst many other things, have buggered up my running & walking of late. I planned a gentle (sadly mainly tarmac) run in an attempt to gain some fitness in advance of a training trip coming up.
The following route was devised as a gentle run / walk – enough to remind heart & lungs what they are there for, but not too much so as to overly jangle my knackered knees.
It all seemed to go swimmingly well with only two enforced stops to give my L knee a good talking to.
Just under 8 miles with around 300’ of up and downery. And it didn’t rain.
Nice. I’ll do it again next week, but before that there’s a 8-9 mile Tally-Ho! trail run in Saddleworth on Saturday. Well kept JW Lees, good food, good company….and hopefully a good route. And mud.

Saturday 9th February, Kidney Research

NP+1 (aka Neezup) were asked to play at a fundraising ceilidh last night. The event was held in aid of Kidney Research UK at Oughtrington Primary School, near Lymm, Cheshire.

It was well supported and I’m fairly sure the charity made a few bob out of the event.  The band had a great time, the audience were very enthusiastic….and they fed us. It was fun. A good result for all – especially those who enjoy gherkins, of which there were many.

Gherkins that is.

 

 Alison in gherkin demolition mode

A willow in the process of being stripped

 Half of NP+1 in action

 All of NP+1 in action (L > R: RJP, JJ, Les, the long-suffering Rick)

Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of Rob, our rather excellent caller. Next time perhaps….if he stands still long enough.

Anyroadup, I need to buy some gherkins. I’d forgotten how good they are.

I wonder if they can be dehydrated for backpacking>

Sunday 3rd February, Stockport to Manchester

Don’t let the title put you off, this is an interesting little walk – although there isn’t a curry at the end of it. There will be next time.

I needed to escape JJ Towers, two weeks of walking inactivity wasn’t doing me any good at all. That’s not to say I haven’t been busy, I’ve been running round like a blue-arsed fly recently, I just haven’t had any ‘me’ time.

A Plan needed to be put together. A frazzled brain meant that The Plan would have to be a simple one, needing very little brain power. No problem there then…I’m blessed with VERY little brain power.

Company on the walk was obtained relatively easily: Alistair rarely needs an reason to get out and it was good that he could come along. Oh, and there’s me of course. I’m still here – despite what you may think….and I need to train to get ready for a training trip that’s coming up.

I took the train from Navigation road station in order to catch the 09:57 to Stockport. It delivered me to, er, Stockport 15 minutes later. Alistair, who lives a few minutes from Stockport Station rolled up a few minutes later – and off we went.

Our route took us north out of the town, initially along the Trans Pennine Trail. The morning was a bit grim – not actually raining, but cold, dark and drizzly-damp. Fortunately we were all clad in boots. The path was very muddy in parts although as with many paths, the bits close to populated areas tended to be well surfaced.

 
This section of the TPT, in common with a lot of the route, follows disused railway tracks.

Rather attractive marker posts guided us to Reddish Vale

The last time I was walking here was in 2005 when I used an extended version of the route as a training walk for the Nijmegen Four Days Marches. Things have changed a little since then. This is the reason we got lost missed our turning around Reddish Vale. And there were too many railway lines. Oh, and we were probably yacking too much to be keeping an eye on the map. This little mishap meant we used more tarmac than planned, but that wasn’t the end of the world.

Reddish Vale and the slow line to Sheffield….the cause of some confusion. 

Lunch was taken in Debdale Park but the cold wind ensured we didn’t hang around. Then there was another navigational mishap, this one caused by the planting of a new housing estate on top of a footpath. No big deal though, we were soon back on our planned route.

 The local council’s careful use of limited finances is to be applauded.

Soon we’re on the Ashton Canal towpath, walking west (?!) on a route that coincided with the Cheshire Ring Canal Walk. This canal is just part of a very extensive network of canals that grew out of, and grew with, the industrial revolution. The sad shells of factories are all about.

Much of the housing around here consists of small terraced properties. Thankfully the slum-housing of East Manchester is long gone, but it’s easy to imagine what the area must have been like in years gone by. More modern properties are cropping up where these industrial slums once stood.

Then came the Fairfield Moravian Settlement – an oasis of peace and tranquillity. It has to be visited to be believed. You should go, it’s quite a shock to come across this place – set as it is, in a not particularly wealthy area of East Manchester. Check out the link, here are some photos:




Back on the canal, still walking west, and more industrial archaeology:

The disused factory of Eva Brothers, Forgemasters and Engineers.

 Manchester city centre in the distance

The condition of the canal towpath and it’s environs improved as we got closer to Manchester. I suspect this improvement is a legacy of the Commonwealth Games – it had to look good for the visitors! Lack of finance (and interest?) has meant that the area hasn’t been maintained as well as it might have been.
The Games were of definite benefit to the area though:

Manchester Velodrome 

 City of Manchester Stadium, now home to Manchester City Football Club

Getting closer to the centre now, old mills and new builds

Who ever said that Manchester wasn’t at the cutting edge of entertainment technology clearly hasn’t visited the city for a long time:

On final approach to Piccadilly Station where Alistair left us to catch his train home
There’s a lot of investment going on in Manchester, even in these financially strained times. It would be a terrible shame if this old advertisement was to vanish, just in the name of ‘progress’. H.A.Howard & Sons Ltd was incorporated in Manchester in the 1940s but the firm no longer exists.
Chrissy Brand’s very excellent Mancunian Wave featured this advertisement in November 2011. 

We trundled on, into the city centre, to catch the Metrolink tram home – just in time for afternoon tea. A splendid day out and just what the doctor ordered.

This is where we went. Sort of….

Around 12.5 miles with not a lot of up and/or downery. Good though.

24th January, A low noise receive aerial

Modern electronic equipment is the curse of the radio enthusiast. The amount of interference generated by computers, television sets etc, is enough to flatten weak radio signals. The RF crud generated by normal household electronics is strong enough to completely wipe out radio reception. Even seemingly innocent kit can cause problems: some mobile phone battery chargers, some low energy lamps, the dreaded BT wireless hubs, the awful PLA/PLT 'data-over-mains' devices, switched mode power supplies, plasma TVs (these really are bad news), the list goes on and on.

For those who aren't radio enthusiasts but live in an urban environment, you can get an idea of how bad this interference is by tuning around on an AM radio, indoors, in the evening. You'll probably hear plenty of radio stations, but you'll also hear lots of whistles, heterodynes, buzzes, mushy noises etc, that shouldn't be there. Put your AM radio next to a (switched on!) PC or TV and I'd be surprised if you can hear ANY broadcast stations.

It's a legal requirement that electrical / electronic equipment shouldn't cause radio interference - but trying to enforce the law is far easier said than done. There's a huge amount of kit for sale on the high street today that's illegal - it just doesn't meet the RFI / EMC regs. Such is the influence and power of large corporations, they very often hide behind their product's 'CE' marking. I could go on about illegal 'CE' markings....but I wouldn't want to bore you.

This is all bad news for me, I've not been able to play radio for a while. I've experimented with different aerials with varying degrees of unsuccessfulness.

My first major attempt at quiet radio reception was this active, untuned loop. The circuit and notes are published on the QSL.net website of Des, M0AYF - and very good it is too. Thanks Des!

This is the circuit diagram:

The active loop aerial is situated about 35-40 ft down the garden, mounted at around 6ft above ground level.

It's certainly better than my 80m dipole on receive but it's still susceptible to picking up man-made noise - although at generally lower levels. I find it pays to switch between aerials to see which receives less noise - sometimes the dipole wins

My latest attempt at reducing received noise is this little piece of kit I put together this evening using bits from my junkbox:

This is the ENTIRE antenna - apart from it's power supply. The aerial bit is the plain bit of board on the left, the electronics on the right is a buffer amplifier that matches the extremely high impedance of the small aerial to the low impedance input of the receiver - it provides a significant amount of gain too.

It receives power down it's coaxial cable, and with a little bit of filtering at both ends, there is no need for batteries or separate power feed cables. 

It's tiny - and it seems to work quite well. Although received signals are down on the dipole, received noise levels are WELL down = much easier to copy weak signals that would otherwise be swamped by man-made interference.

It's an E-Field probe so it receives RF by capacitive coupling to the electric field rather than a magnetic field.

 

There is good evidence to suggest that the magnetic component of interfering domestic sources such as TV line time bases tends not to be significantly confined within a building whereas the electric field tends to be significantly attenuated by the structure. This can work to the advantage of this small aerial if it's mounted at a reasonable height and clear of mains wiring & buildings.

I can't claim any originality for this idea, it's the brainchild of Roelof Bakker, PA0RDT - quite a whizzkid by all accounts, and my thanks go to him.

Details of the aerial are widely published on t'interweb but I settled on the article published on the Crawley Amateur Radio Club's website and my thanks go to them also.

Tomorrow, time and weather permitting, the aerial will be mounted remotely down the garden.

Perhaps lower noise radio-activity will return to Timperley soon.

Safeguarding the future of our National Trails

An email from the LDWA popped into my inbox t'other day informing members of a campaign being conducted by the Ramblers. I think it's important enough to reproduce here:

Dear All
The Ramblers have an on line petition about the future management of National Trails and to make sure that National Trails remain our national treasures.
If you enjoy using the trails do click the link below for more info and to sign the Petition.
http://www.ramblers.org.uk/england/campaign-with-us/campaign-for-national-trails.aspx

You know it makes sense….you know what to do.

20th January, Alderley Edge in the cold

Plans for an active weekend were well and truly scuppered, all down to my responsibilities as a carer. No matter how much planning I do, unexpected situations crop up and bite my bum – this weekend TWO separate incidents conspired to sabotage my plans. An excellent Tally-Ho! run was missed yesterday, and a 17 mile LDWA walk was missed today.
I needed to get out for a bit of a stretch and Alderley Edge seemed to fit the bill – not flat (not very lumpy either!) and fairly close to home. Ten minutes with a map I had a route planned, 8.5km of footpaths and quiet lanes.
Leaving the car at the Alderley Edge National Trust car park I wandered off south(ish), first following the icy lanes through woodland and then on footpaths over Finlow Hill and Clinton Hill.

Towards Clinton Hill

Looking SW from the saddle twixt Finlow and Clinton Hills, Jodrell Bank in the distance

The footpaths, covered in compacted snow, were slippy – but the tarmac was absolutely treacherous. Ice-rinks had nothing on this. It was good to get off the tarmac and back onto footpaths which generally offered less slippy options.

Wrapped-up goat….well it IS winter

Chilly sheep

En-route to the edge

Alderley Edge is home to many of the rich & famous, footballers seem to find it a particularly attractive place to live. The high fences and walls that these houses hide behind make it all but impossible to get a decent photograph of them, so I borrowed this photo from The Daily Mail:
The photo was taken in summer. Obvious innit.
I trundled off northwest-ish to skirt the village (?) of Alderley Edge and then to the sandstone edges. The views were wintry to say the least:
About two hours after setting out I arrived back at the car for a very welcome coffee, it had been too damned cold to stop for a drink on the way round.

8.5km with not much up and downery, but it was good.