First Summit of the day.
GW/NW-042. 26th January 2019.
Altitude 577M. Grid SJ 176465.
Today I was going to activate the two summits of the Horseshoe pass. I chose the furthest one away from the car park first Moel y Gamelin. I had left home in Telford at 06.15 a.m. as I needed to get some fuel (I forgot on Friday night). I managed to get to the car park opposite the Ponderosa Cafe grid SJ 19239 48068 for 07.29 a.m. sorted my gear out and started walking.
It looked as though sometime last year they had a heather burn as most of the heather has now gone. The ascent took me over the top of Moel y Faen and eventually arrived at my activation summit for this morning at 08.11 a.m. time for a quick selfie and then move just off the summit and out of the wind. I set up my Yaesu FT-270 Hand held and my Homebrew 2M yagi. I had a quick scan over the band and heard G6DFD (Mike) talking to G0HCT (Brian) two of TDARS members from my own club. I heard Mike say lets go to S20 to listen out for Paul on his SOTA activation. So I gave a quick break break and had my first QSO at 08.24 a.m.
This followed quickly with a further three TDARS members and summit qualified. I wanted a few more as I was slightly ahead of my schedule, I gave a quick CQ SOTA and managed to bag a further five QSO's including M1EYP/M (Tom) on his way to activate I think he said the Cloud.
Activation complete so I packed up my gear and started towards my next summit at 08.47 a.m.
Today I was going to activate the two summits of the Horseshoe pass. I chose the furthest one away from the car park first Moel y Gamelin. I had left home in Telford at 06.15 a.m. as I needed to get some fuel (I forgot on Friday night). I managed to get to the car park opposite the Ponderosa Cafe grid SJ 19239 48068 for 07.29 a.m. sorted my gear out and started walking.
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This followed quickly with a further three TDARS members and summit qualified. I wanted a few more as I was slightly ahead of my schedule, I gave a quick CQ SOTA and managed to bag a further five QSO's including M1EYP/M (Tom) on his way to activate I think he said the Cloud.
Activation complete so I packed up my gear and started towards my next summit at 08.47 a.m.
Second Summit of the day.
GW/NW-043. 26th January 2019.
Altitude 565M. Grid SJ 208488.
After a good 57 minute walk I arrived, took a quick selfie and started to set up my gear. This time I wanted to use HF as well. I set up my 6M telescopic mast and my 40/30/20m SOTA Beams dipole. Time to start a CQ call on 30M, I also spotted myself on SOTA Watch. My CW is still not too fast so again I apologise to the chasers. I managed to get my first contact at 10.13 a.m. with MW0IDX (Roger) only 22 miles away but it was a nice QSO thank you Roger. Then followed OK1ZC Czech Republic, OH9XX Finland,DJ2MX Germany, OH3GZ Finland, G0OOQ Telford and finally OK2PDT Czech Republic. I managed to qualify the summit in CW which makes my day thank you all.
I then moved onto 2M with my Yagi and bagged another 12 QSO's including MW0IDX (Roger) and G0OOQ (Sean) whom I had both managed to QSO in CW as well.
The end of another great activation at 11.25 a.m. and another 10 points towards my goal of Mountain Goat. I will add another photo below of how close the communication mast was too me but I didn't receive any interference. This photo also shows my Homebrew 2M Yagi, this cost me less than £10 to build and works really well.
Parts used to build this are as follows:
25 mm white plastic conduit
20 mm white plastic conduit
20 mm white plastic conduit T piece
20 mm to 25 mm white plastic enlarger (join the 20 mm to the 25 mm)
6 mm solid aluminium bar (3 M Length)
RG58 Coax
2 x crocodile clips (join the coax to the aluminium)
Statistics:
Distance walked 6 miles
Steps taken 12,085
equivalent flights of stairs 155
distance driving 101 miles
Equipment used:
I have lined a few photos just to show how easy these can be made and yes they do work well. The weight is a great saving.
Thank you again to all the chasers, without you it would be a wasted day.
After a good 57 minute walk I arrived, took a quick selfie and started to set up my gear. This time I wanted to use HF as well. I set up my 6M telescopic mast and my 40/30/20m SOTA Beams dipole. Time to start a CQ call on 30M, I also spotted myself on SOTA Watch. My CW is still not too fast so again I apologise to the chasers. I managed to get my first contact at 10.13 a.m. with MW0IDX (Roger) only 22 miles away but it was a nice QSO thank you Roger. Then followed OK1ZC Czech Republic, OH9XX Finland,DJ2MX Germany, OH3GZ Finland, G0OOQ Telford and finally OK2PDT Czech Republic. I managed to qualify the summit in CW which makes my day thank you all.
I then moved onto 2M with my Yagi and bagged another 12 QSO's including MW0IDX (Roger) and G0OOQ (Sean) whom I had both managed to QSO in CW as well.
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Parts used to build this are as follows:
25 mm white plastic conduit
20 mm white plastic conduit
20 mm white plastic conduit T piece
20 mm to 25 mm white plastic enlarger (join the 20 mm to the 25 mm)
6 mm solid aluminium bar (3 M Length)
RG58 Coax
2 x crocodile clips (join the coax to the aluminium)
Statistics:
Distance walked 6 miles
Steps taken 12,085
equivalent flights of stairs 155
distance driving 101 miles
Equipment used:
Yaesu FT-270 2 M Handheld 5 watts
Yaesu FT-817 Multi band 5 watts
Li-Ion 18650 4200 mAh 3.7v qty 3 (12.2 v)
Homebrew 2 M Yagi
40/30/20 M linked dipole
6 M telescopic mast (fishing pole)
I have made two of the battery packs, these cost £7.99 for 4 batteries and you only use 3. I charge these with a BC-4S15D Lipo balance charger cost £11.45. all purchased from ebay.
These packs last on average 2 - 2.5 hours of constants, CQing and talking, the pack weighs 115 grams.
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Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteWell done again Paul.
73 de Eric M0KZB.