GW/SW-030 Mynydd Machen

GW/SW-030 Mynydd Machen

07/May/2021

Another unique in the log

Leave car and walk up the concrete road...route from SOTA Mapping by Phil G4OBK

Evidence of the large mountain fires from a few weeks ago.

More Communications towers

My final summit of the day so facing the wonderful vista I kicked off with 2m and soon qualified the summit with Alison G0ALI being my fourth contact and husband Mike G4TCI being my first…thank you both.

I’d set up close to the Comms tower just to see what interference I would get and then try the Sotabeams filter to see how effective it was. I was hearing S3 bursts of noise so I set up the filter on the FT270 (not that it needed it..desense not evident) and the noise disappeared completely. 

Sotabeams filter on the FT270...need to try on the FT2

What I should have done was to try the FT2 but by that time Viki was calling for an s2s and the experiment was forgotten….

13:24	G4TCI	144MHz	FM	Mike
13:25	GW6OVD	144MHz	FM	Mal
13:27	G0NUN	144MHz	FM	Bob
13:29	G0ALI	144MHz	FM	Alison
13:33	GW0WLQ	144MHz	FM	Rob
13:37	G4VSF/P	144MHz	FM	Jeremy
13:46	MW6BWA/P	144MHz	FM	Viki s2s GW/SW-026 Bryn Arw

 

Great views from the summit...Bristol Channel

I was straight on to 60m as I knew Rod would try and get me for an s2s. It did eventually happen and as there were no more callers I got up and put the loading coil on and called on 80m but there was no response.

13:48	G4IPB	5MHz	SSB	Paul
13:49	M0BKV	5MHz	SSB	Damian
13:50	MW0OFA	5MHz	SSB	Frank
13:51	G0VWP	5MHz	SSB	Terry
14:07	MW0JLA/P	5MHz	SSB	Rod s2s GW/SW-027 Bryn Arw

 

Bristol Channel from the trig

I briefly listened on 40m and found a lot of powerful stations so I decided to go straight to 20m which was a good move and resulted in a good run of chasers. I pulled the plug after this as I had a long journey home along the M4.

14:18	F5JKK	14MHz	SSB	Eric
14:18	IK2LEY	14MHz	SSB	Fabio
14:19	EA1DHB	14MHz	SSB	Ricardo
14:20	SV2RUJ	14MHz	SSB	Stavros
14:20	SP8RHP	14MHz	SSB	Robert
14:21	EA2DT	14MHz	SSB	Manuel
14:22	EA7GV	14MHz	SSB	Jose
14:23	SV3IEG	14MHz	SSB	Dinos
14:25	OH3GZ	14MHz	SSB	Jack

I never got around to testing the Sotabeams filter on the Yaesu FT2.  I’ll do that again on another summit although my friend Simon G4TJC has found it to be very effective with his Yaesu FT3.

My activation set-up

HF:- Elecraft KX2 (8 watts) and 4.2Ah LiFe

HF Antenna – End-Fed - 49:1 Unun with loading coil for 80m

HF Antenna support – 6m Sotabeams Carbon Fibre Fishing pole

******

VHF/4m Antenna support – 4m Life’s a Breeze Glass Fibre Fishing pole

(VHF) Yaesu FT270 2m-FM (5watts) into a ‘Slim G

Thanks everyone for the contacts

73 Allan GW4VPX