GW/MW-021 - Crugiau Merched

GW/MW-021 - Crugiau Merched

27/10/2017

Friday was a good day…in many ways.

With Val having a prior engagement I phoned my friend Terry to see if he would like a walk on the hills around Cwrt y Cadno.  He was up to it and we made our way to the parking spot at SN729464.

My GPS track

We were ready to make our way down to the chapel of Bwlch y Rhiw and the gates below the cottage which lead to a track which takes you part of the way to the summit. 

Chapel of Bwlch y Rhiw

However, the farmer came along on his Quad and kept us chatting for a while. We also had a long chat with the elderly woman in the cottage as Terry was intrigued with the Monkey Puzzle tree in her garden. We did eventually reach the summit :)

Terry striding towards the trig in the distance

At last-we have arrived :)

Set up and activating

09:58z	GW0PLP	144MHz	FM	Don
10:10z	GW8NZN/P	144MHz	FM	David s2s
10:12z	GW6DGU	144MHz	FM	Roy

Don and Roy were chatting on 2m so I was assured of 2 contacts.  I called them and Don told me that David was on Cadair Berwyn GW/NW-012…he was soon in the log and then I was back to Roy for my third contact….thanks everybody.  Despite calling on 145.500 I didn’t get any further contacts on 2m so I set about spotting myself on 60m.  Not many around today on this band despite calling for quite a  while.   The phone signal was now iffy and I noticed I had missed Andrew G8CPZ/p Bardon Hill G/CE-004 on 60m but he had appeared on 40m…I called him and my first CW s2s was in the log…thanks Andrew. This was Andrew’s second activation for SOTA so welcome to this addictive side of Amateur Radio :)

10:21z	EI3GYB	5MHz	SSB	Michael
10:22z	G8ADD	5MHz	SSB	Brian
10:24z	G3ZPF	5MHz	SSB	David
10:29z	G0VWP	5MHz	SSB	Terry
11:23z	G8CPZ/P	7MHz	CW	Andrew s2s

20m pile-up on the KX2

Despite numerous attempts I just could not get a phone signal…even had a walk around the cairn.  I called out on 40m but there was no response so we decided to have some lunch.  After lunch the phone network seemed to have come back on line so I changed the links for 20m and sent a spot….instant pile-up…..with the best DX being George in Vermont, USA…thanks everyone.

11:45z	N1GB	14MHz	SSB	George
11:45z	EA3GHZ	14MHz	SSB	Joan Carles
11:46z	EA2LU	14MHz	SSB	Jorge Raul
11:46z	IK2LEY	14MHz	SSB	Fabio
11:47z	DJ9BX	14MHz	SSB	Mike
11:47z	OE3KAB	14MHz	SSB	Karl
11:48z	OH3GZ	14MHz	SSB	Jukka
11:49z	HB9MKV	14MHz	SSB	Rudi
11:49z	HB9AGH	14MHz	SSB	Ambrosi
11:50z	HB9CEX	14MHz	SSB	Peter
11:50z	DD0VE	14MHz	SSB	Ralf
11:50z	DJ9BX	14MHz	SSB	Mike
11:51z	DL/4X1DX	14MHz	SSB	Moshe
11:52z	F6FGR	14MHz	SSB	Didier
11:52z	OK2PDT	14MHz	SSB	Jan
11:52z	RV9DC	14MHz	SSB	Sergei
11:57z	EA1GIB	14MHz	SSB	Manuel
11:58z	IU1INZ	14MHz	SSB	Lorenzo

It had not only been a cracking day with wall to wall sunshine but also my first CW s2s…still work in progress though.

Looking back at the summit from a slightly different decent route

Autumn colours

Activation set up

 (HF) Elecraft KX2 (10 watts) and 4Ah LiPo

 Antenna - 3 band link dipole (60/40/20 (+15m extensions +80m loading coils)

 (VHF)  Yaesu FT270 (5watts) into a ‘cable tie’ dipole

Antenna support - 7m Fishing pole.

Thanks everyone for the contacts

73 Allan GW4VPX

CW and beyond..

Val and I haven’t been on any hills or mountains lately.  One of the main reasons is that I’ve been saving our local ones for ‘Winter Bonus’  time which is rapidly approaching. 

Nevertheless, I have been chasing SOTA summits with both SSB and CW modes!!  It’s been some 30 years since I used morse code and the learning curve to get the receive side up to speed again has been tough and still very much ‘work in progress’. Koch Morse Trainer Pro on my phone has been  a great learning aid. Thankfully I never lost my ability to send morse so it’s been fun playing around with various keys to get me up and running.

Having bought a Palm-mini-paddle many years ago I thought it was time to start looking at using it in on the main rig in the house.  As the Palm has two magnets underneath I made a mild steel base, sprayed it with some silver paint and stuck rubber feet underneath it…I was ready to play.

Mild steel base with rubber feet attached

Palm mini-paddle on the base

As I have always enjoyed building kits I had also purchased a Porta Paddle (as used by Pete G4ISJ) from the USA with the intention of eventually using this on the hills  ( http://www.americanmorse.com/portapaddle.htm ) .  This was quickly built and attached to a walnut base with magnets glued into it so that I could use my mild steel base.

Porta Paddle with Walnut base sitting on my mild steel base

Magnets glued into Walnut base

I have also purchased a cheap circuit board from an onlineshop, assembled it then boxed it so that I could practice without having to use a radio. Investigating an Arduino based Iambic keyer at the moment.

Circuit board now boxed up and ready to go

As I said ‘work in progress’ , great fun and thanks to all the activators who have responded to my calls…log is filling up slowly with more and more cw contacts. Looking forward to that first cw s2s…quite a few of my friends wanting to be the first …you know who you are :)

73 de Allan GW4VPX