Its not often you get a cloud inversion in south wales, I guess this is somewhat special, so I though I would write a short report while on a traverse of some of the Beacon Beacon’s yesterday. GW/SW-005, GW/SW-007 and GW/SW-006:
Looking towards Pen Y Fan on Fan Fawr, just after the fog cleared.
Day started in the freezing fog, -4C on the pass between Fan Fawr and Pen Y Fan. It wasn’t long before I was on Fan Fawr GW/SW-005 in the fog and whilst I was putting the mast up, the fog cleared. This led to one of the best mountain view i’ve had while operating on 10m(1/4w vertical) and then the W3EDP random wire for 40m. The first s2s of the day was with @GW4BML on Stiperstones.
Shadow Back in the freezing fog
It didn’t last long as Shadow and I were soon back in the fog with the long traverse to GW/SW-007. Conditions on the summit were bitterly cold. Putting the mast up without access to rocks and frozen ground was somewhat difficult, so I compromised with just the Random wire, bent pegs and a what turned out to be a huge pile up and lots of QRM on 40m. I knew it was cold because Shadow opted for the insulting mat and my legs for a change!
Ice formations on Fan Nedd
Onwards to Fan Gyhirych GW/SW-006 as the cloud lifted. I saw Ben @GW4BML spotted on 10m just as I was arriving on the summit, so I quickly put the 1/4w vertical up and tried Ben on GW/MW-012 who conveyed the message “10m was open to US…”. What followed was a very enjoyable 30 minutes of operating 10m almost all contacts in the states with some very good signal reports.
My final contact was a summit to summit with @W6PNG on 10w. I had no idea where he was in the US, until someone chipped in on the frequency afterwards “Incredible, thats a South Wales to California s2s”. Fantastic end to the day, the band was in great condition !
Thank to everyone for the contacts and help !
Operating Fan Gyhirych…
The Grey Line on my descent … it was getting quite dark but the camera makes the most of the light !
