Gerald G4OIG and myself are venturing to the far-off wilds of West Wales to activate the outlying summits down there in a very full two day expedition on Sunday 13th and Monday 14th July.
We are starting with a “mopping up” operation on the SW’s, first tackling SW-017 and SW-022 which got left behind on our previous excursions, then on to MW’s 034, 036 and 037 before staying overnight near Carmarthen.
On Monday an early start (07:00 - Breakfast Club please note!) takes us to MW-011, then MW-033, -028, -035 and -029.
Full itinerary on Alerts shortly. As usual Gerald will be on 144.333 ssb, with possibly 70cm ssb and 40m cw activity if time allows, I will be using 60m ssb with 40m or 80m ssb as dictated by prevailing propagation conditions.
We look forward to working you from these infrequently activated summits.
Hi Paul, I’m looking forward to this one, if I can work you on most of them I will only need MW-21/29 to complete all GW’s chased.
Good luck, I will be glued to my radio, hi.
From speaking to people during yesterday’s activation of SW-027, SW-034 and SW-037, I have been told that many of the West of Wales summits planned for this coming Sunday and Monday are on people’s “wanted” lists. Hopefully we will be able to satisfy many of those who will be looking out for us.
Having worked at least 14 contacts on 2m SSB from each summit yesterday (yes, on a weekday!)with a couple more on 70cms SSB, I found time was running tight and I failed to activate the first two summits on 7MHz CW. By missing out on a timed lunch break and making up time wherever I could, I managed to arrive 30 minutes early on the third summit and I extended my stay to a total of 2 hours in order to be able to offer at least one summit on 7MHz CW.
While I would like to offer 7MHz CW on the West of Wales summits, I think that it is unlikely that I will have time as we are activating 5 summits each day with many road miles between summits. I have therefore posted that I will self-spot if the opportunity to activate the band does arise. Apologies in advance to those affected by this. If it were practical to spend more than 45 minutes on each summit then Paul and I would be doing that.
In reply to G4OIG:
I could just hear you at 12:45’ish (GMT) yesterday (8th). But, from the works car park on the vertical, not quite strong enough to determine what you were saying. Should have taken the day off - they were all uniques for me!
73, Graham, G4FUJ
Perhaps you should get yourself a horizontal dipole Graham and find an excuse to go and collect something from your car when the activator is QRV… maybe try this next Monday? Alternatively get Frank to let me know you are on frequency and I will turn the antenna vertical.
The Cheltenham Mafia were conspicuous by their absence on Tuesday, apart from Frank, so I am hoping for more of a showing tomorrow. I will of course be keeping an ear out for you and any other members of the CM during Monday as well and don’t worry about changing polarisation as it only takes a minute and overall that’s not a problem.