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| MW0BBU....hanner ffordd......(half way).... |
You may remember a few posts back that Mark, MW0MJB and myself did a SOTA activation from Foel Cwmcerwyn to give MC0PQP its first outing.
Well, as I have been tramping the hills myself of late I decided to give that old Mountain another visit.
Woke this morning at around 6am and the weather was really good, better than when I did Frenni Fawr.
Anyway after a quick cuppa I was away leaving at around 06:45 from the home QTH.
The drive is not too bad to the Preseli's, around 22 miles to the top at Bwlch Gwynt.
As I got higher the cloud base was coming down to meet me, Cwmcerwyn was nowhere to be seen, oh dear was the first thought, and at the car park the visibility was around 20 metres or so, "Ah well" I thought, just stay on the path.
We have had a good bit of rain since I was last on the mountain and the bog at the end of the Pantmaenog forest was a lot wetter than the last time.
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| Up in the mist... |
No wet feet, I have to say though, I could not see a thing.
So I stuck within range of the barbed wire fence which, I knew would lead me to the stile about half way up,
I did have the company for a little while of a couple of Ravens that were "Kronking" away in the mist.
Probably wondering if I would end up as carrion...!!!
Soon got to the stile after what I call the "steep bit" and took 5 mins as I was well ahead of myself....
Again, I must try to not be so early....
I set off again and the Sun did make a fleeting appearance brightening the way.
I must say I was very saddened to see that people were chucking sweet wrappers as they went.. did find an empty can too, what is wrong with people that they cannot respect this beautiful place.
Anyway soon at the top and the Sun was doing it's best to clear the clouds, setting up didn't take too long and I took advantage of the hole in the trig point again.
Off we go....... 7.032mhz CQ CQ and straight away was answered by DL3HXX, first of the day, closely followed by Roy, G4SSH, an absolute SOTA stalwart.
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| 40m QRP/p |
Anyway 40m was producing some good contacts until a station opened up .5khz down and totally killed it for me.
I sat QRT for a while and soon the station had gone, and I fired up again working down as far as Spain.
After an hour of operating and 31 qso's in the bag I decided to call it a day on HF and wrapped up the doublet.
Now then here's the thing, MW0BBU/p on 2m FM.... well to be honest, shouldn't have bothered really, called for 20 mins or more.
Had a reply from Gary, 2W0GDB/p in Criccieth in North Wales, who was a very good signal to me, and that was it.
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| Cwmcerwyn trig point 536 metres A.S.L. |
Hard to believe that I could see as far as the north Devon coast and nothing..
Ah well as the old man always used to say "you live, you learn".
So around about 10:30 am I started to make my way back down to the van.
By now the mist had all gone and I had some wonderful views of past SOTA's at Frenni Fawr and Carningli, beautiful day, beautiful scenery......
What more do you need.
Anyway took me around 40 minutes to get to the van and then too home for a big ole fry up..
Great time had again today, thanks to everyone who called in, and I look forward to the next one.
All the best and 73's
Steve...MW0BBU.
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