GW/SW-013 Tor y Foel and GW/SW-011 Sugarloaf

A break in the weather and a few hours off meant a chance to activate two more summits. The sky looked quite pretty on the drive up, but the old saying “Red sky in the morning” came to mind.

First up today was SW-013 Tor y Foel. The drive up was good and ice free. We arrived at the parking spot and we were soon on our way up the hill. This one isn’t a long walk, but does have 3 fun little rises before the actual summit. From the start the wind started to pick up, but thankfully it was dry.

We reached the summit and looked for some sort of shelter. We found a small hollow big enough for the two of us and set up our gear. With the hf and vhf antennas up, the poor pole was bending well in the wind. Thankfully it held up.

We started on vhf, and although I posted a spot on the SOTA site, things were pretty quiet. 2 contacts were made, but then it went quiet (we were early on summit). We switched to hf and called on 20m. I took half a dozen contacts and Maldwyn took quite a few more. After this we went back to vhf to see if anyone was looking for us, but it was quiet, so after a few CQ calls, we shut down and packed away the gear, wanting to move on to summit no.2. The walk down was very windy, even managing to throw me around!

The drive to SW-011 Sugarloaf was quick and without event. We soon found the car park and after a quick coffee, we started walking towards the hill. The cloud was very low here, and while the wind was much easier at lower levels, visibility was not wonderful.

The walk up was quite quick, and we were soon on summit. Again, we managed to find a hollow on one side of the summit just away from the trig point, with the antenna set up on top. Bar a few walkers braving the cold and wind, it was very quiet.

This time we set up on vhf, with hf as a backup. Calls came in quite quickly and we both had the summit qualified in ten minutes. We managed a few more contacts after this before the weather finally started to come in, the wind picked up and it started with the wet stuff. I took a couple more calls, but we wanted to get down before getting drenched, so I called it. Sorry if there were any stations still waiting to contact us. We packed away with the wind getting stronger and were soon heading back down.

It didn’t take long to get back to the car, and we headed home... luckily we missed the worst of the bad weather which started as we left the mountain. I’m so glad we were not up there when it came in.

Many thanks to the stations that answered our calls and called us. Also, again, apologies to anyone that we missed at the end.

73, Ian 2W0IWM/p and Mal GW6OVD/p

GW/SW-010 Craig y Llyn

Quick activation report for GW/SW-010 Craig y Llyn (600m IO81er 4+3pts).

Mal (GW6OVD) once more rescued me for an hour out. From the start, the weather looked... damp? (Persistently raining). But... it was seven more points, and local.

Today’s target was SW-010 Craig y Llyn. Driving up... more rain.., heavy rain... I started to doubt our sanity, but Mal said it would be easing off at the summit. In fairness, it did. It stopped raining! Yay. It snowed instead...

The route to this one is an easy walk up the access roads for the wind farm. The track is good and fast going. Of note, take care if your going up there, as we were passed by a number of large logging trucks, tractors etc, all giving us a friendly wave. Stay to the sides of the tracks, as they can be hard to hear with the wind.

Once at the top of the track, it’s a little right turn into the forestry and within a minute, your at the trig point. Though sheltered, we opted to operate at the far end, overlooking the valley (though not today as it was full of cloud).

The trees can make vhf difficult in some directions, but it was chosen to start the activation, with hf as a backup. As we set up, it started to rain again... so we huddled under the trees and pulled Mal’s umbrella over the radio.

The first couple of CQ calls gained us two contacts, and with a little more work, we soon had the summit qualified. Then... the snow started. Heavy, fluffy snow. Yes, we must be mad! Huddled under the trees, in the snow, calling CQ 😂 (actually, it was good fun). After 7 contacts, things went quiet, so we went QRT and packed up.

The walk down was uneventful, and quite picturesque with snow clinging to the trees. Of course... the skies then cleared and we had nice views and blue sky! (Though it didn’t last long).

Thanks to all those that answered our calls. Catch you on the next outing.

GW/SW-009 Mynydd Troed and GW/SW-015 Mynydd Llangorse

Mal (GW6OVD) rescued me for a couple of hours so I could get a little fresh air, so we headed towards the Brecon Beacons intending to activate SW-009, SW-015 and SW-13 Tor-y-Foel.

An early start saw a cold morning with quite a bit of fog locally, but this seemed to lift as we headed towards the parking spot between the the first two summits.

On arrival, we found an empty Parking spot and it was blue sky sunny! with just a little ice and ground frost. The track and later “steps” up to Mynydd Troed are a particular favourite of mine... in a racing heart kind of way, so Mal pushed on ahead and I played catch up.

The steps section was particularly bad, with a lot of very slippery mud on the foot holds. Mal had no issue, but I found it hard going with my larger mass... I ended up walking up the clumps of heather. Slow, but safe. Take care if your heading up there in the near future. Once at the top, the remaining path to the summit was fairly good.

On MY arrival (some minutes behind my companion) Mal was already setting up (Hard week... my excuse), so I joined in to get the pole set up with guy lines and slim Jim. Mal was trying out his new Yaesu FT-857... but we immediately found we had an issue. The N type to SO259 was not to be seen, and mine was on my 857... and I didn’t bring my transceiver! ok. Umm... we were early on summit to the time on our posted Alert, so a quick swap around and we set up my Icom handset on the antenna.

Hard going... yes. 5w vhf from these two hills is hard work, but after a lot of calling and chasing we picked up 5 contacts as far afield as the Isle of Wight and Lancs... plus a summit to summit in North Wales, but virtually nothing local. The gear worked. Just hard for VHF.

We called it at that point having qualified the summit, so we packed up and headed down, trying a little detour to avoid the steps on the way down. It worked, but was 3x the distance. I’ll slide down on my rear next time.

Back to the car, we had a quick coffee, found the right adaptor for the 857 and then started to walk up SW-015.

The walk up this one is shorter and not at the same angle as Troed, and while the ground had quite a bit of frost in places, it was easy going as most of the mud was frozen or at least very firm.

We soon arrived in the activation zone and set up on some convenient rocks. This time, the 857 was brought into action on 2m and we called... and called... and called... now Llangrose is known to be a pain with VHF activations, but we have always found it fairly easy. Today, no. The gear was working fine, but after an hour and only 3 contacts, it was plan B and HF time. 20m was fired up and after 2 calls, Mal made contact with a string of US stations. I took over, and added a couple of contacts to qualify the summit. Wow...  too close to a fail there.

Down was an easy stroll. Sadly, time had gone on, and I had to head back home, so activation no 3 didn’t happen this time. It’s planned for next time out.

Lessons? Spare adaptors kept in our bags. Handset makes a great backup in a pinch.

Many thanks to the stations that answered our calls.