Radio Tales from West Wales and beyond...: March 2021

GW/MW-011 – Foel Cwmcerwyn

30/03/2021

Warm breeze on top

Surprisingly a very quiet car park behind Tafarn Sinc (SN 075 296) this morning considering lockdown measures had been eased…mine was the only car there. However, I did notice on my way down to Rosebush that the car park at Bwlch-gwynt was full so there would be visitors to the summit today. It was a sunny morning so there would be a few photographic opportunities.

My GPS track

From the carpark head straight across the road and into the field

Looking back at the route through the field and up from Tafarn Sinc

Easy navigation..1.8 miles to summit

I set up away from the trigpoint and by my alerted time I was ready to spot and call on 70.450Mhz with a qsy to 70.425Mhz. Instant pile-up from friends who were waiting but I first took the mobile and Tim GW4VXE/m was quickly in my log. The most excited chaser was Ian EI4DP over in County Wicklow who told me I was his first GW on 4m. Thanks everyone.

09:36	GW4VXE/M	70MHz	FM	Tim
09:37	GW0JLX	70MHz	FM	Andy
09:37	GW4OUU	70MHz	FM	David
09:38	2W0LLJ	70MHz	FM	Jenny
09:40	MW0CXH	70MHz	FM	Peter
09:42	MW0VLO	70MHz	FM	Barry
09:45	GW4ZHI	70MHz	FM	Bryn
09:46	MW0OFA	70MHz	FM	Frank
09:47	EI4DP	70MHz	FM	Ian, County Wicklow
09:50	GW4JQP	70MHz	FM	Peter

My set-up today and away from the Trigpoint

Moving to 2m means I have to swap over antennas so that takes a couple of minutes but well worth the effort as another pile-up was waiting with some really long distance copies.

10:00	GW4GRW/M	144MHz	FM
10:01	GW0JLX	144MHz	FM	Andy
10:02	GW6DGU	144MHz	FM	Roy
10:02	GW4OUU	144MHz	FM	David
10:03	2W0LLJ	144MHz	FM	Jenny
10:04	MW0OFA	144MHz	FM	Frank
10:05	GW0SXS	144MHz	FM	Kevin
10:06	GW8SFT	144MHz	FM	David
10:08	MW0VLO	144MHz	FM	Barry
10:08	GW4XXF	144MHz	FM	Bruce
10:09	GW8GLW	144MHz	FM	Irfon
10:12	GW0PLP	144MHz	FM	Don
10:15	G5XDX/M	144MHz	FM	Callum
10:16	EI4DP	144MHz	FM	Ian, County Wicklow
10:17	G0RQL	144MHz	FM	Don
10:24	2E0YYY/P	144MHz	FM	Mike, G/HSP-021
10:25	MW6IVK	144MHz	FM	Philip

I did have a few visitors on the summit..there were also humans visitors

I didn’t hold out much hope for HF as there has been some solar activity and I was correct when I called out. When conditions are unfavourable low-power can be a challenge but I managed a few contacts and giving a few points to a few different chasers.

10:31	2E0AGB	3.5MHz	SSB	Allen
10:36	G4WSB	3.5MHz	SSB	Bill
10:37	MW0VLO	3.5MHz	SSB	Barry
10:37	2W0LLJ	3.5MHz	SSB	Jenny
10:38	G0RQL	3.5MHz	SSB	Don

Sadly, some didn't make it although we tried...

60m was a little better although still very difficult with QSB (fading) playing it’s part in thwarting my HF activation. Simon G4TJC set me a number of text messages informing me that he knew I was there but with his noise level it would be hopeless to make a contact. I wasn’t even making any impact on Hackgreen….it’ll get better and thanks to all who listened and tried like Dave G3TQQ and Emyr MW0VPS who just couldn’t complete the contact.