Saturday 29 December 2018

28th December 2018. GW/NW-012 Cadair Berwyn.

GW/NW-012 Cadair Berwyn. 28th December 2018.
Altitude 832M. Grid SJ 071323

Today was going to be my last activation of 2018 so I decided on Cadair Berwyn as I had not been there this year. Jamie and I set off from home at 06:35 a.m. and headed towards Oswestry on the A5, then A483 until Llynclys then turned right on to the A495, followed it then it turned into the B4396 then eventually into the B4580, then turning into Waterfall Street. We had decided on parking at a slightly different place this year. Grid SJ 08013 29056 there is a small lay by just big enough for 3 cars at a push. We were the first to arrive so plenty room.
We had got all our gear ready and started walking at 07:40 a.m. I decided to record the journey using my GPS map on my phone, the route we took is below.

We had a gentle ascent as we didn't need to rush and Jamie as not done any hill walking since we did Snowdon in June. We didn't see anyone else until we had arrived at the summit and set up in the cairn, then we had 4 or 5 groups ascend on us wanting to know what the wire and fishing pole was. Jamie managed to explain to all as I was already making QSO's.

The ascent was going well and we decided to take a break to have breakfast at 09.00 a.m. just near the lake. A nice cup of coffee and a ham sandwich went down well. As seen from the photo above the cloud cover was just above the lake level and we decided to put on an extra layer of clothing just in case.

We managed to arrive at the cairn and set up by 10.10 a.m. and have a quick drink of coffee then had a quick look on Sotawatch and say that MW1EYP/P (Tom) had got a spot on for him so I decided to give him a S2S first, which I did  followed by a further two more S2S with F/HB9AFI/P and SQ9MDF/P.
I then decided to spot myself on 14 Mhz and made a further 4 QSO's in CW. I then tried my luck on 145 Mhz and made a further 15 including another S2S with GW4VPX/P (Allan) and M3TMX/P (Jordan). The reports were all good signals and a good time enjoyed by myself and M6SZF (Jamie) my son.


I decided to put a little video of my Morse code QSO with SA4BLM (Lars) from Sweden, just to show it is not like making a CW QSO in your shack, it can take a little longer especially if the wind is blowing and you get cold.
Thank you to all of the chasers and especially to Jamie for accompanying me for the activation.
I hope you all have a great New Year and hopefully have a QSO with you soon on another summit.



Monday 24 December 2018

22nd December 2018. GW/SW-041 SOTA Activation visit.

GW/SW-041 22nd December 2018.
Grid SO 255350 Altitude 703M.

My second visit to The Black Mountains (Brecon Beacons), this time with winter bonus points. I decided to make an early day start and left my home QTH (Telford) at 6.00 a.m.


I arrived at the car park at grid SO 23954 37335 at 07.43 a.m. so it was not a too bad of a journey. The hardest part of this summit is the initial walk up to Hay Bluff. This took me about 25 minutes with a few little breaks for photos and a quick breather.

I had arrived at the summit and set up for 9.00 a.m. I was going to use 30M CW first as this had saved me at my last activation. I managed to log 5 CW QSO's, including Germany, France, Sweden and Czech Republic. Thank you all of the CW operators for being patient with me and my slow Morse code.
At the end of the activation I had managed the following contacts:
10 Mhz x 5 CW
14 Mhz x 2 SSB
7 Mhz x 6 SSB
145 Mhz x 9 FM
I also managed to hold 3 S2S's on 2M with GW0VPX/P,(Allan), MW6BWA/P(Vicki) and MW0JLA/P(Rod). Thank you to all chasers and the summit to summit contacts.
Happy Christmas to all and hope to catch you on the next summit. I hope to activate two more summits before the end of the year.



Saturday 15 December 2018

15th December 2018. GW/NW-035 SOTA Activation visit.

GW/NW-035 15th December 2018.
Grid SH 724447. Altitude 661M.

My second visit to Manod Mawr near the village of Ffestiniog North Wales. I left my home in Telford at 06:00 a.m. and headed west down the A5 towards Shrewsbury and Wales. I arrived at the car park location at grid SH 73269 45601 at 08:15 a.m. It had turned light at 07.50 a.m. so I could see what I was doing. I got my gear ready and started my ascent.

As seen from the photos above you can see that it didn't look to good up there on the summit. I managed to get to the summit by 08.43 a.m.and started to set up my SOTA Beams linked dipole. I was going to try another CW activation. This didn't go as planned and after spotting myself and calling CQ for about 10 - 15 minutes on 20m and no calls logged I decided to try 40m. Again spotting myself and this time I decided to try SSB. I managed to log 3 QSO's in a 5 or 6 minute run then again it all went down hill.

The weather was getting worse all the time and the temperature was not the best (about -4 wind chill).
After another 30 minutes of no contacts I decided to try my luck at CW again, this time I was going to try 30m. I stopped myself and to my astonishment I had 3 QSO's in the next 8 minutes. I am very sorry to the others I could hear trying to get back to me but at that stage I could not feel my hands let alone my fingers. I told myself enough is enough and I needed to pack up and head back to the car.

As seen from the photo's above I had a little surprise when I went to my mast? OMG it was frozen solid. This was not good as I had no feelings in my fingers, so I struggled to pack the gear away, then it dawned on me why G0UFE (Simon) and M0JZH (John) call me crazy horse lol.

Thank you to all that managed to hold a QSO and those that tried. If it wasn't for the Chasers we could not qualify the summit.



Sunday 9 December 2018

8th December 2018. GW/NW-039 SOTA Activation visit.

GW/NW-039 8th December 2018.
Grid SH 953423. Altitude 611M.

Here I go again back to the summits, its winter bonus points time so why not. I left home at 06:00 am and headed towards Shrewsbury and followed the A5 until about 6 miles past Corwen and headed towards Llangwm. I arrived at about 07:45 am as it was just getting light. I got all of my gear ready and started my ascent up the usual route as shown on the map below.



I managed to arrive at the summit at 08.20 am and it was extremely windy, I thought I might have a few problems with my new mast. I have purchased a 6m telescopic fishing pole from our local Decathlon store, a good suggestion from one of our TDARS  members M0PNN (Paul) it is not as strong as my 10m SOTA pole but about 1/3 the weight.

 I have made a few changes including trying to improve my CW (Morse code).
I wanted to try and qualify my first summit on CW. I made 6 QSO's using this mode then switched to SSB. 4 out of the 6 call signs checked ok using QRZ.COM, they included: SP9AMH (Mariusz in Poland), HA8BJ (Weber in Hungary), LY2BNL (Valdas in Lithuania) and OE6WIG (Franz in Austria) I had a further 2 in Sweden but can not confirm their call signs, this might have been my mistake taking down the call signs?

I only managed one Summit to Summit with CT2HOV/P (Nuno in Portugal) He was on CT/TM-038. I heard two or three others and tried to get back to them but just too many chasers, never mind.
11 SSB 20M and 6 CW 20m logged so I was a very Happy activator. My furthest CW was LY2BNL 1041 Miles to Lithuania and SSB was EA5GMB 1033 Miles. I managed to have CW and SSB with SP9AMH ( Mariusz).

Thank you to all Chasers especially the CW QSO's for being very patient with me.




Sunday 4 November 2018

3rd Nov 2018. G/WB-010 SOTA Activation visit.

G/WB-010 3rd Nov 2018.
Grid SJ 628081, Altitude 406M.

Another visit to activate my local summit (The Wrekin). It has been 5 months since I went out on the hills to play radio and I have decided time is right to start activating again. The Wrekin is only 15 minutes drive away and an easy 30 minutes walk up.
I started my ascent at 12:07 p.m. and managed to get to the summit at 12:31 p.m. A new record for me so I was happy before I even started to play radio. I set up my new
  SotaBeams Linked Dipole which I purchased from TDARS rally from a Silent Key sale.

I can set this up in less than 10 minutes so I was very happy. The 20m band is where I was heading and it was very busy. My first contact to OM0ET (Paul) in Slovak Republic followed by 15 more from all over the world. I plucked up courage to try a CW S2S with OE5EEP/P  Heinz in Austria (sorry Heinz I was a bit shaky, one nervous two very cold lol) but I did it.


It was the Trans-Atlantic S2S QSO Party, sadly no S2S's over the pond but still NA & VE contacts. So all in all a very good few hours and well worth the walk up. I have now got the bug again and will be visiting as many summits as I can over the near future. Only a few weeks then winter bonus points as well.


20M Band
5 Watts Yaesu FT 817
SotaBeams 20m,30m 40m linked dipole.
Green icoms S2S (Summit to Summit)
Red Chasers
Blue My Summit


73 Until the next activation.
M0PLA/P Paul




Saturday 30 June 2018

29th June 2018. Snowdon GW/NW-001 SOTA Activation visit.

GW/NW-001 29th June 2018.
Grid SH 609544 Altitude 1085M.

It was time for our annual Birthday trip for me and my team to Snowdon. We had the same group as last year, Jamie (M6SZF), Amy, Rick and Myself Paul (M0PLA). We set off from home (Telford) at 05:30a.m. and headed towards Wales on the A5. The weather was fantastic and 12 Degrees as we left home.
We arrived at Pen Y Pass at 07:42 a.m and the temperature was 18 Degrees already looked to be a great day. We had a problem with parking as the Pen Y pass car park was full. We had to travel another 3 miles or so to an alternative car park. No problems as we were told there was a local Sherpa bus route. We stood at the bus stop with about another 15 - 20 people and waited like 40 minutes and still no bus arrived. Out of sheer luck a taxi pulled in and I pounced on him straight away. We managed to get all four of us to Pen Y Pass for £6.
We managed to start our assent at 08:55 a.m. we were all in very good spirits as last year on the same day it was raining. After an hour of walking in the hot day we all wished for rain lol. We had plenty of water with each person carrying 1.5 ltrs and an additional 2 bottles of 1.5 ltrs carried between us. I think we all drank the bottles we carried by the time we reached the summit and split the spare bottles between us before the Descent.

We arrived and had set up by 11:35 a.m. local time and started to call CQ SOTA on 2M FM. First contact was Bruce GW4XXF, followed by a good friend Allan GW4VPX. I felt like I was back where I was suppose to be "on a Summit playing radio".

I managed to bag 29 QSO's before the end and my furthest ever contact on 2M FM, I heard a voice coming out of the radio saying Devon, I thought no it cant be lol it was Don (G0RQL) from my calculations that is 151 miles.

Thank you all for a great day and the Birthday wishes that you sent me. A special thank you to my team for making sure I was safe. See you all on my next Summit soon.