My report on activations of these two North Wales summits, September 2014:
[G4TJC blog - Two in a tangle][1]
Thanks to all the chasers and apologies for dropping 40m from my Moel-y-gest activation.
73, Simon, G4TJC.
[1]: G4TJC: Two in a Tangle
Nearly met you on GW/NW-028 Simon, I had just come down Moel Siabod around 14:50, and was deciding on the next summit. I wish I had stayed up there now for a little longer for the S2S.
GW/NW-028 seemed possible, but without any planning seemed fairly easy to get lost in the woods as others had mentioned. Decided on going to Blaenau instead, but I ran out of time with that and decided to head back home. 8-pointer wasn’t bad at all, I’ll be using the blog for planning 028 next thanks !
Jonathan
That’s a shame our paths didn’t quite cross Jonathan. I’m sure they will eventually (and we are in the same faculty! hi hi).
I’d like to see your minima after all.
The road in to NW-028 lost me some time. It is very narrow with plenty of tourists visiting the lake-side tea room (might take my family there - it looks nice), so largely 20 mph max from Trefriw. I suppose the natural thing to do is a combination with Pen Llithrig yr Wrach the other side of Llyn Cowlyd, but I wasn’t feeling up to that!
Which way did you tackle Siabod? It took me most of a day!
73, Simon
Precisely, It was my original intention to do the two on the Saturday, but as you say that takes some serious effort. Siabod won just because I thought I could strap the pole to the trig point, I didn’t in the end but the rocks where arranged well enough to support the pole. Need to build a bracket for it.
I went up by Plas y brenin pretty easy but seemed to go on forever through the mist. Pretty certain it took me under 2 hours looking at my log, 6 o’clock start. The other route looks far more interesting though with some proper scrambling going on there.
I am thinking of doing Carnedd Llewelyn next, if you want to do a joint activation ?. Currently designing the 20M filter for the Minima. Not sure if this weather is going to hold though, September has been very kind so far.
Jonathan.
In my SOTA activations, I’ve always used a vertical telescopic fiberglass pole with the antenna wire inside it, plus a number of radials on the ground. All I have to worry about is making sure the pole remains aproximately vertical and this simple tool used by the fishermen to hold their fishing rods vertical at the beach is very useful most of the times, except when in a very rocky summit.
You can buy one at Decathlon for about 4 or 5 euro. I saw it last friday for 3.99 euro in Pamplona’s Decathlon.
This is the way I always use it:
I hope you’ll find this information useful.
Best wishes de Guru - EA2IF
I went up by Plas y brenin pretty easy but seemed to go on forever through the mist.
Ok, that looks a lot less rocky than along the spine from Pont Cyfyng way. The views are beautiful all round, so it deserves several visits from different approaches. I will probably try from Plas y Brenin next. From Dolwyddelan looks interesting too.
Carnedd Llewelyn… Oh heck - will have to get in training! I’ll contact you off-list.
Thanks for the tip Guru. So far I mostly use either the inverted V with one extra Dacron string or GP configuration with 3 wires + strings, so it’s Ok. But sometimes it’s just the pole with 2m Slim JIM, so the fisherman’s support would help, so long as the ground is not too rocky.
Simon
Glad my route on Creigiau Gleision was some help Simon. Bit tricky to follow through the trees. Nice set of reports.
Cheers!
It’s my turn to try out Gerald’s route tomorrow. I’ve studied it and the aerials on Google Earth. It looks a good challenge and shall be walking on bearings in the forest. I hope to get on air before the rain starts - say between 1pm and 2pm watch time on 2m fm.
73
David
MW0YDH/p
Hi David,
How did it go? Did you beat the rain?
Simon
(I think we met at Baggerage Park)