2nd February 2019. SOTA Activation GW/NW-044 & 051

First Summit of the day.

GW/NW-044 2nd February 2019.

Altitude 555 M. Grid SJ 161626.

Yes Saturday again and time to go back up the summits, today was going to be Clwydian Range. I left home (Telford) at 06:15 a.m. and headed towards Shrewsbury and on to Wales down the A5. The summits today are very close together and near Mold in North Wales. The temperature was 0 degrees as I left home but soon started to drop. -1 as I got to Shrewsbury and -2 as I approached the Oswestry area.
No snow on the roads until I was about 2 miles away from my car park grid SJ 16146 60586.
I arrived at 07:45 a.m. made a quick video and started my ascent.

I managed to arrive at the summit for 08:30 a.m. I had passed a few walkers on the way up and it was very cold already with a wind chill of about -5 degrees. I set up my 2M Yagi against the fence in the SE corner of the trig point. I started calling CQ Sota and made my first QSO at 08.44 a.m. I managed to log 16 QSO's in about 26 minutes including 4 TDARS (Telford and District Amateur Radio Society) members from my local club.

I packed away my gear and started back towards the car at 09.15 a.m.

Second Summit of the day.

GW/NW-051 2nd February 2019.

Altitude 511 M. Grid SJ 164600.

 I made it back to the car and had a quick cup of coffee to warm up a little before I started my ascent up Foel Fenlli. I started my ascent at 09.52 a.m. and the going was very slippy and the wind was blowing a lot harder on this summit which was not making the way any easier.
I managed to make the summit at 10:13 a.m. took a quick selfie and set up my 2M Yagi again, this time no fence so in went my tent pole as a mast support.

I logged my first QSO at 10:26 a.m. and managed to log 15 QSO's in all, 35 minutes later I had finished and was extremely cold I had already decided not to activate HF, sorry to any chasers that were waiting. My hands were so cold I don't think I could have used the Morse key.