Barry M3PXW had been asking me to activate a pair of summits with him for a few weeks and we were considering either G/SP-015 The Cloud and G/SP-013 Gun, or G/SP-017 Billinge Hill and G/SP-010 Winter Hill, all in the South Penines group.
An alternative opportunity arose when one of Barry’s friends asked Barry to run him down to Porthmadog for a weeks camping holiday on a campsite right at the base of GW/NW-067 Moel Y Gest, this would be on 22/7/07 and then to pick him up a week later on the 29th.
Barry suggested that we did GW/NW-067 Moel Y Gest and GW/NW-064 Mynydd Rhiw as a pair, but on checking the summits page, it was obvious that Moel Y gest would be too much for me with my back problems and this was confirmed by emails from Richard G3CWI, Tom M1EYP and John GW4BVE.
On the day that Barry ran his friend to the campsite, the wx took a nasty turn for the worse, so the activation was cancelled and plans were drawn up for the following weekend.
I suggested that we do Great Orme and Mynydd Bodafon, two summits I had already done, but uniques for Barry, then on to Mynydd Rhiw to complete the hatrick, we could then collect Barry’s mate and head for home.
GW/NW-070 Great Orme 29/7/07
It is only a 1 hour drive down the A55 to Llandudno from my home QTH and the traffic was quite light for the time of year.
On arrival at The Great Orme car park we had our first bit of luck, finding the pay and display car park ticket machine out of order, so parking was for free.
As is usual at this time of year, the area behind the cafe where the trig is situated was swarming with tourists and it would have been foolish and irresponsible to attempt to erect a HF antenna in those circumstances.
We opted to set up on the small rise over the the opposite side of the car park where there is a handy fence to lash poles to and the dipole legs can be safely pegged over the fence out of harms way.
It was decided that I would start the activation on 7.032-cw followed by 5.3985-ssb because Barry isn’t a CW man and has no 5Mhz Nov and would therefore activate on 2m and the remaining HF bands on ssb.
The cw got off to a cracking start with a huge pile up and 20 stations logged in quick succession, including a s2s contact with Klaus DF2GN/P on DM BW-179
All throughout the cw session, I suffered very bad deliberate qrm and had to end the session prematurely. My apologies to all stations not worked.
A QSY to 5.3985-ssb brought in another 9 QSOs for me including s2s contacts with Andy MM0FMF/P on GM/SS-140 and Steve GW1INK/P on GW/MW-018.
5Mhz completed and it was time to switch ops and let Barry take over, starting on 40m-ssb.
Barry’s initial CQ call brought in Peter ON3WAB with good reports in both directions, so things were looking good for a good activation all around, what followed was beyond belief!
Barry’s next CQs were met with a wall of silence, the band had just simply died on its feet.
A QSY to 20m brought the same results, leaving Barry needing 3 more contacts to qualify the summit.
He had no option other than to QSY to 2m. Right from the outset on 2m the breakthrough from the radio masts made it impossible so I suggested a swift move to the other side of the summit, where Barry had no problem making contacts with Jordan M3TMX, Ian G7EGQ, Mick 2E0HJD and Mike G4BLH.
He had qualified it as a new unique for the point and for good measure we shuffled in and out of the activation zone to get a chaser point each for our trouble, before packing up and heading for the island Anglesey and our 2nd summit.
Stations worked…
GW0DSP/P
HB9AFI, GM4FAM, DL6KVA, ON6NW, HB9AGH, Dl3JPN, F5NEP, DL4FCK, F6FTB/P, F8BBL, ON7ZM, F5CQ, HB9BHW, DL8DXA, F6GET, F8DGF, DF1BN, DF2GN/P (s2s), ON3WAB, HB9DOT,MM0FMF (s2s),M1MAJ, GW0VMz, G4GKE, GW1INK/P (s2s), G0RQL, G0VWP, G4OBK, G3FTH, MW3PXW/M
MW3PXW/P
ON3WAB, M3TMX, G7EGQ, 2E0HJD, G4BLH, GW0DSP/M
GW/NW-071 Mynydd Bodafon
The journey to Anglesey was rather uneventfull until we crossed the Menai Straits via the Britannia Bridge and came upon a rather nasty accident where a 4x4 type vehicle towing a livestock trailer had hit the central reservation and the trailer had flipped onto it’s side.
The accident put us well behind schedule and we were now forced to continue up the A5 and then cut across the B5112 to the East through Trefor and on to the summit.
On arrival at the summit Barry asked where the trig was, so I explained and was absolutely gobsmacked to see him turn tail and RUN to the trig and then back down to get his gear.
I’ll tell you, that lad brings a whole new meaning to “Mountain Goat”.
We decided that as it was getting late that Barry would operate from the trig with his VX-7 and I would operate HF from the first peak above the carpark approx 200m from Barry.
I started on 5.3985 FE using my FT-817 and my cq was answered by Martin M1MAJ followed by nine of the regulars, Don G0RQL, the Devon Beacon was a huge 59 signal and it was nice to receive the same 59 report back with my 5 watts qrp.
I tried 3.666 in the hope of working some more of our regulars and managed a very difficult contact with Mick 2E0HJD up in Clitheroe, then back to FE to finish up with contacts with the other half of the N. Wales Mafia, Steve GW7AAV and a QSO with Charlie GW0PZO/P tucked up in his tent in south GW land.
Looking across to the trig I could see the comical sight of Barry hand holding his 3 element beam and frantically waving his other hand in my direction.
Had he learned some age old Celtic mountain top jig?
I found out later, as we were packing up, that he had had a hard time qualifying the summit and was in fact waving in an attempt to let me know that he had in fact cracked it and bagged his second unique of the day.
Time was now getting on and we had no option, we would have to cancel our third planned summit. It will still be there for another day.
The views from this summit towards Snowdonia were breathtaking with a lot of the higher peaks in cloud. There are a few pictures now on Flickr.
Stations worked…
GW0DSP/P
MW3PXW/M, M1MAJ, G4GKE, GM4WHA/P, GM0BPU/P, G0RQL, G0HNW, G0VWP, GW7AAV G4BLH, 2E0HJD, GW0PZO/P, DL6KVA.
MW3PXW/P
GW0DSP/M, GW4KAZ, MW0IDX, MW0YDX.
Thanks from Barry and I to all stations worked and for spotting us both.
73 from Mike GW0DSP and Barry MW3PXW