GW/SW-016 Ysgyryd Fawr

GW/SW-016 Ysgyryd Fawr

05/10/2016

My 100^th complete today

Whilst speaking to Rod M0JLA a couple of days ago when he was on a summit and mentioning that I would be out for an s2s with him from Ysgyryd Fawr I couldn’t understand why he wished me luck with my activation on Ysgyryd.  I now understand what he meant as it was a busy summit and Rod and Viki don’t like busy summits :)

Val was back with me today having recovered from a bad back. I paid the £3 ‘all day parking fee’ into the machine in the new car park at SO329173 and we were soon on our way to the summit from a very crowded car park. 

My GPS track..2.41Km

£3 in the machine :(

Pleasant walk through the trees to begin with

Another false summit,,actual summit slightly to the left of centre

Sugar Loaf GW/SW-011 in the distance

We had arrived....windy but the sun was shining :)

It was a very windy day today and I was already making plans to look for a sheltered spot on the summit and the possibility of a low slung HF antenna, however, the first visit would be to 2m. 

Opening the activation on VHF

I soon qualified the summit after posting a spot on Sotawatch using RRT…no problems with phone signal here and even 4G was showing on the screen. Phil G7AFM was there almost immediately and we had a nice QSO,  indeed, I had a nice QSO with all 4 stations…thanks everyone.

10:49z	G7AFM	144MHz	FM	Phil
10:52z	G4WOD	144MHz	FM	John
10:57z	G4KVT	144MHz	FM	Jason
11:00z	G0PPM/M	144MHz	FM	Ken

I swapped the FT270 for the FT817 and 5 watts into the linked dipole set for 60m. Instead of choosing 5.371.5 I opted for 5.403.5 as I knew Jim in Co.Wexford could not operate on that band. As soon as the spot hit Sotawatch Mike G6TUH was in the log followed by Jim EI9GLB. I had a brief QSO with most of the chasers so it was a very pleasant visit to the band…thanks again everyone.

11:07z	G6TUH	5MHz	SSB	Mike
11:08z	EI9GLB	5MHz	SSB	Jim
11:09z	G7BGA	5MHz	SSB	Geoffrey
11:09z	G7AFM	5MHz	SSB	Phil
11:10z	G8VNW	5MHz	SSB	Nick
11:11z	GI4ONL	5MHz	SSB	Victor
11:13z	G0VWP	5MHz	SSB	Terry
11:14z	G4FGJ	5MHz	SSB	Gordon

Sugar Loaf GW/SW-011 from 'the office'

By this time Val was having to answer questions on my activities with one lady asking if we still sent QSL cards…her father was a G3 now sadly SK (Silent Key..meaning he had passed away).  It was time to move on to 40m answering questions as I changed the links :)  The bands were again strange today as my friends Roy GW6DGU and Don GW0PLP could not hear me in Cardigan yet EI, GI and GM were booming in and it was nice to have a brief QSO with Jack up in Scotland and some hints of a joint activation up there next year.  I had turned the linear on for this one and it remained on for my visit to 20m where I hoped that there might be some DX chasers on the band.

Bristol Channel in the distance..calm before the storm..no visitors for a while :)

11:26z	ON5SWA	7MHz	SSB	Francois
11:27z	EA2CKX	7MHz	SSB	Pedro
11:28z	DL3HXX	7MHz	SSB	Lothar
11:30z	GM4COX	7MHz	SSB	Jack
11:33z	MI1AIB	7MHz	SSB	Paul
11:34z	ON7TH	7MHz	SSB	Wilf
11:34z	HB9DHA	7MHz	SSB	Ray
11:37z	G0VWP	7MHz	SSB	Terry

With an announcement of “Stand by, Stateside only” George N1GB from Vermont was soon in the log with a signal of 5/9+ and to my surprise he came back with 5/9 also. 20m was working well with 5/9 reports each way into Europe. It was nice to hear Sylvia OE5YYN calling in (congratulations on reaching  Mountain Goat status). Another 5/9 station came booming in from the States in the form of Roy KD2AGW but the chasers soon dried up …I suppose it is to be expected when activating mid- week.

Out of the wind

11:45z	N1GB	14MHz	SSB	George VERMONT
11:45z	SP9AMH	14MHz	SSB	Mariusz
11:46z	OK2PDT	14MHz	SSB	Jan
11:47z	YO2BP	14MHz	SSB	Alexandru Zoltan
11:47z	OE6GND	14MHz	SSB	Gerhard
11:48z	OE5YYN	14MHz	SSB	Sylvia
11:49z	SQ9MDF	14MHz	SSB	Leszek
11:50z	KD2AGW	14MHz	SSB	Roy - New York
11:51z	DF4TD	14MHz	SSB	Reinhard
12:21z	M0JLA/P	5MHz	SSB	Rod s2s

As yet I hadn’t had an s2s but I told Val that as it wasn’t cold we would hang around to see if Rod would pop up on 60m from SP (South Pennines). I re-set the links to 60m and tuned the FT817 to 5.371.5 as I knew Rod likes to use this one.  A few energy bars later and a spot came up for Viki on VHF and very soon Rod popped up and was surprised by me calling 's2s Rod' :)  Rod was soon in the log and a quick QSO followed ..I soon left him to his pile-up happy with an s2s to finish the day..thanks Rod.

I was packing up and was approached by a gentleman with two gun dogs opening the conversation with dah-di-dah dit, dah dah di dah. Yes, I said CQ …it transpired he had been in the Army..Signals Corps.....took me a long time to pack away :)

Nice new car park

Ysgyryd Fawr gave me my first 100^th complete today which means I have activated and chased those 100 summits…certificate has been ordered :) …more to follow :)

My activation set up:-  (HF) Yaesu FT817 (5 watts) (4Ah LiPo),  UK-MX 50M linear (for 817) and 12V 4 Ah LiPO battery,  3 band link dipole (60/40/20 (+15m+80m extensions),  (VHF) Yaesu FT270 (5watts) into a dipole.. Antenna support - 7m Fishing pole.

Thanks everyone for the contacts

73 Allan GW4VPX