What a weekend - that’s all I can say 
Activation report of Cader Idris GW/NW-009
By @GW4BML
It began at 5:30am on Saturday morning when I packed the truck with all my SOTA gear and headed for North Wales to climb the SOTA summit of Cader Idris GW/NW-009. I arrived at ‘Dol Idris Car Park’ which was very quiet, paid £3 for my parking ticket, loaded the rucksack on my back and off I went.
The sun was out in the sky, the air was fairly warm for the time of day, and there wasn’t a person in sight - I had the path all to myself which looked very green after the rain we have had in GW 
the one good thing about Cader Idris is…… every step you take, you gain height! It’s pretty steep most of the way, it’s not a forgiving summit!
It took me approximately 1 hour 20 mins to reach the trig stone where I paused for a breather and a swig of water.
I wanted to call into the HZ net which takes place every morning on 3.760-SSB between 7am and 08:30am. I set the KX2 up, erected the 6m carbon pole and attached the EFHW antenna. The wind was howling, I really don’t know how my pole managed to stay up, but it did! I switched the radio on and flicked to 3.760 with a good result - the net was still running! Then came a better result, I called in and had success with a radio report of 5/8 - perfect. I then decided to QSY 6KHz up, spotting on SOTA watch and calling CQ SOTA…… I managed to qualify on 80m working 5 stations in total.
It was the GW SOTA S2S party day which kind of began at 09:00z, I was early to the party, so thought I’d try 20m and see if the band was open…… to my surprise it was, so I managed to add another 11 stations to my log - happy days!
After putting out a few final calls, I thought I’d now try 7-CW, I had a few messages being sent in our local SOTA group saying the band was opening…… I tuned in on 7.0325 and began bleeping away calling CQ SOTA - the band was certainly waking up, I managed to work 12 stations before moving across to 7-SSB and working a further 24 my morning so far was going well!
After putting final calls out on 40m, I decided to pack away HF and slightly move location to the cairn which sits just below the trig - the wind had picked up and I was beginning to freeze.
I snacked on a packet of hula hoops and a chocolate bar - didn’t want to eat too much because I was looking forward to my hog roast later on in the day at the GW gathering
It was now time to erect the slim-g on my 6m tactical mini pole and fire the good old faithful Yaesu FT-65e hand-held up.
Oh boy did it do me proud, I put a CQ SOTA call out on S20 and QSY’d to 145.425 where I was for quite some time managing to fill 3 pages of my log book ending with 62 contacts - what a fantastic time I had! The Irish stations were booming into me from there S2S party as well - it was great to work you over the pond fellas, I hope you had a cracking event too 
I got slightly carried away and lost track of time, so I had to pack away pretty quick and jog all the way back to the truck. It didn’t take too long until I was back home loading up the final pieces to take to our GW SOTA gathering. I opened the field gate at 14:00 and shortly after friends began to arrive thick and fast.
I managed to work a total of 114 stations with 39 of them being S2S contacts - a good mornings work done
I’d like to thank all the chasers that called into my station, it was great to work you on this special GW day - I’d also like to thank all the S2S contacts that I worked, I think you’ll all agree, the hills were certainly alive!!
I had a great time back at the GW gathering and hog roast, plenty of good friends and there partners to talk to and some new faces to put a name to. Sorry if I missed to say hello and have a chat, there was quite a lot of people there the food tasted amazing, I couldn’t wait to tuck into my hog bap!!
I’d also like to say a big thank you to @M1EYP Tom for presenting me with a lovely gift - a perfect choice of alcohol which I enjoy and have enjoyed over the past few nights
I hope everyone enjoyed themselves - roll on next year with some new faces too!
73, Ben
GW4BML
