Radio Tales from West Wales and beyond...: GM/WS-001 Ben Nevis

GM/WS-001 Ben Nevis

11/06/2018

A long day….

It didn’t all quite go to plan. We initially started as a group of 5 but by 300m ASL Val felt the pace was a little too fast for her and decided to go back down.

On our way...crossing bridge by the Ben Nevis Visitor Centre

On our way

Val meeting up with Rhodri

As many will know the distance to the top from the Ben Nevis Visitor Centre is 5 miles and even if you are fit it is still a long haul. Nevertheless she enjoyed her day talking to others who had also given up and reverted to waiting at the Centre for friends and family to return. However, she did have one joyous moment when she met Rhodri our son on his way up. He had started a good hour behind us as he had just arrived at Fort William on the Caledonian Sleeper from London. He had taken a taxi to the Ben Nevis Centre, picked up his rucksack from our car and set off in pursuit….incidentally he didn’t know he was carrying the HF linear and battery….he took an hour less than us to reach the summit…oh to be young again.

Leaving Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe

Looking back down at our route and Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe

Still climbing

Heading into the mist

The snow

The summit

We spent a few poignant minutes on the summit as Barry scattered a few of his wife’s ashes. Andi was also an experienced hill walker and Barry was fulfilling one of her wishes.

Rhodri arrived just as we were setting up the HF gear so we promptly plugged in the linear and immediately heard Rod M0JLA/p asking G8ADD if he had heard us as he had gone out specifically to get an S2S with us….thank you Rod.

Activation

Rod was soon in the log and handed us his frequency. Despite a depressed Attenuator button on the KX2 we managed to qualify on 60m picking up quite a few more on 40m. The bands were not in the best of shape and rapid QSB was a major problem.

12:44z	M0JLA/P	5MHz	SSB	Rod s2s
12:47z	EI3GYB	5MHz	SSB	Michael
13:03z	G0RQL	5MHz	SSB	Don
13:05z	G4IAR	5MHz	SSB	Dave
13:14z	EA2CKX	7MHz	SSB	Pedro
13:14z	G4WSB	7MHz	SSB	Bill
13:14z	PA0INA	7MHz	SSB	Frans
13:15z	M3FEH	7MHz	SSB	Karl
13:16z	G8XDD/P	7MHz	SSB	Dave h2s
13:17z	G0ELJ	7MHz	SSB	Dave
13:18z	G0FEX	7MHz	SSB	Ken