The warm weather was still with us on 13/2/08 and Barry 2E0PXW and I decided to jointly activate a couple of the easier WB summits. We chose WB-004 Titterstone Clee Hill and WB-005 Long Mynd, with the possibility of WB-003 Stiper Stones if the daylight held out.
G/WB-004 Titterstone Clee Hill
The ascent of this summit wasn’t easy for me. I took the longer route, heading from the car park across to the more gentle slope up the hill, then following the fence up to the top. I couldn’t believe my eyes when arriving on the top to see a car park up there servicing the radar station, hi. Barry took the more direct route, straight up a motorbike trail, near vertical too. That lad never fails to amaze me, he may not have the required 1000 activator points but he really is a mountain goat!!
As usual, I opened up with my FT-817ND/3ah SLAB and 5watts on 60m ssb and my initial call was answered by G0TRB followed by another 10 of the usual suspects, including a S2S contact with the other half of the Connah’s Quay mafia Steve GW7AAV/P on NW-051
Throughout the 60m activation, the swr reading was shooting up and down and on inspection I found a wire to one of the powerpole connectors had come adrift, it was the only soldered joint on the antenna!! With the antenna fault I wasn’t sure if I could operate on 40m-cw but decided to give it a shot. Good job I tried 40m, I wasn’t thinking straight, the defective powerpole was at the 40M link so swr was perfect on 40-cw.
My QSY to 40m found DL/HB9AGO/P Hans activating DM/BW-564 and the S2S contact was established on my first call in. Another 10 contacts followed including another S2S with Fritz DL4FDM/P on DM/HE-017.
I called Barry on my 2m handy and told him I was descending and would try and do an emergency repair to the antenna back near the car.
Thanks to all stations who called in especially for the S2S contacts.
A total of 23 contacts were made including 3 S2S, 11 on 60m-ssb, 11 on 40-cw, and 1 on 2-fm.
A total of 6 DXCC’s worked.
G/WB-005 Long Mynd – Pole Bank
This is a much easier summit and it was a real pleasure in the afternoon sun. The warm wx had brought walkers out in swarms, so we opted to set up in a nice flat spot in amongst the heather well away from the crowds but close to the summit.
Barry suggested that we used his set up jointly due to my antenna problem, this is what we did and took turns on the various bands to activate the summit.
I opened up on 60-ssb and my initial call was answered by Paul G0HNW followed by a further 14 regulars, the final contact being GM3AKF.
Once again my switch to 40m-cw was well timed, Fritz DL4FDM/P was on his next summit, DM/HE-305 and the second S2S between us was made, thanks Fritz.
A further 24 contacts were made in cw, making a total of 41 contacts for me from this summit.
Total contacts = 41, including 1 S2S, 60m-ssb = 15, 40m-cw = 25, 2m-fm = 1
DXCC’s worked = 11
Thanks again to all stations worked and to Fritz for the second S2S with him, also thanks to all who spotted us on both summits.
73 Mike GW0DSP