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.

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.

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.

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.