Went out for a walk with the girlfriend Sunday so decided to make it up Waun Fach and activate that.
I was hoping the recent dry spell would tame the bogs a little and it seemed to. I also wondered if the new path building people may have done something to the top too.
I think they did as I couldn’t see that scalloped peat dip that looked like it used to hold a trig point at some time.
I did get my girlfriend to share the load, taking the batteries and antenna stuff, leaving me just the FT-897 and mast, and mast stake.
That was enough!
I’d already planned to use my beach shelter to operate from, but it turned out I needed to use it to shelter from the midges!
I don’t ever remember midges up there before? Could they have been imported in the path stone bags?
My phone was being useless and I couldn’t spot myself even on SMS. (To add insult to injury it kicked into life just before I packed away with a series of received messages from my mate (“are you setup”, “what freq you on” etc) waiting for the word to spot me, and even rucksack radio tool kicked into life. meh)
So it was hard work but I managed 21 QSOs eventually.
Midges are everywhere Steve. They go to ground though in anything from slight breeze upwards. It would be rare to be wind free above 800m and that’s probably the reason you’ve not been troubled by midges on Waun Fach summit before.
Flying ants observed on SW-013 Tor y Foel last night around 16-1700z. No insects apparent on SW-011 Sugar Loaf and SW-008 Cefn y Ystrad earlier in the day. Biting horse flies troubling 2W0NON/P (but not GW4OBK/P - sat a few feet away) on SW-026 Bryn Arw around 1000z same day.
My girlfriend got bit or stung on the way down by something stealthy.
I used to do radio contesting just below Gadair summit many weekends for a several years, all weekend some contests. Never bothered by anything but annoying buzzy flies, the ones you see on the sheep poop.
Midges are deffo new to me in the blackies.
I might be new to SOTA but I am deffo not new to the mountains.
Been on Skye in reasonable breeze and munched to heck by midges there.
We were up Skirrid wednesday last week (yesterday this week). I still can’t believe I have never yet seen anyone activating in all my days up the hills! Are you all in the SAS ?
Usually most of the ones around this area (Blackies/Beacons) I do. 3G on top of Skirrid usually.
