I’ve tried 3 times to activate in N Wales without any contacts so far 
(all QRP 2m FM).
I’m going to try again with the FT857 and HF! Tal y Fan this afternoon and Holyhead mountain tomorrow morning. The alerts are a bit flexible wrt timings (the day job takes priority), but I’m determined to get GW under my belt this time.
Might try Great Orme tomorrow evening on my way home, but no idea yet what time I’ll manage that.
Tal y Fan GW/NW-040 is a very good VHF summit. You can qualify that one with ease using just a HT and helical antenna. Never had any trouble from Holyhead Mountain GW/NW-069 either, as Bangor/Caernarfon/Anglesey is quite active on 2m, and there’s every chance of getting called from EI too.
HF is definitely an advantage on Great Orme GW/NW-070 with all the commercial VHF QRM up there, but 2m is still perfectly viable. A beam antenna would be advantageous here, allowing you to experiment with different directions and polarisation.
While there don’t seem to be as many 2m chasers as there used to be I’ve never failed to actuivate a NW summit on this mode. I’m curious to know which ones you’ve been on and failed with. Some of the smaller ones to the west can be hard but the big ones should have more than enough height to get you into Lancashire, Cheshire etc even with 5W and a rubber duck
Cheers
Mick M0XMC
Great Orme (evening), Mynydd y Cwm (v early morning, so not a huge surprise perhaps) & Tal y Fan (evening). All 5W 2m FM
Hence 100W HF capability today!
SUCCESS! Tal y Fan activated and qualified on both 2m and 20m. A beautiful day made better by a nice walk and bit of radio. Thank you to all I worked.
3 Likes
Thanks for GW/NW-040 - first time I have successfully chased that one - cracking signal too 
Dave
(M6RUG)
Time to retry North Wales. Sunday 17 Jul pm hopefully (I’ll alert nearer the time). final selection will be dictated by the weather (076 if damp, maybe something bigger if good wx). Then hope to do a v early morning HF activation from GW/NW-070 on the Monday before work. DX would be nice, I’ve only managed as far as Russia so far from a SOTA. Having broken my jinx on Tal y Fan I’m feeling lucky!