Triple activation day

Yesterday went for a triple activation day.
I started with GW/NW-049 - Gyrn Moelfre

On the way out the steering on the landy felt a bit playful and I thought another job to add to the list.

Parked in the little layby next to the church & phone box when I got there I was the only car there so I managed to reverse parralell park between the phone box and the old church gate leaving plenty of room for field access and for other people.

A quick munch on a chicken sandwich and quick brew

Made my way up the road to the start of the path and followed the route up.
Took me roughly an 50mins to make the climb up. (and a lot less on the way down)


Good view from the top

While on Gryn Moelfre I got this APRS alert on the radio
image

G1SAA-9 - If I am reading this right this station was 156miles from me?

Total of 18 x 2m FM contacts and 2 x s2s contacts. - GW/NW-043 GW4TQE/P & G/SP-013 M7BIA/P

On to the next one
GW/NW-060 - Mynydd-y-briw

Parked up at the entrance to the path leading to the tower, tucked over close to the bushes to give as much space as possible.

I could feel my legs saying no after the previous climb, but cracked on and made it to the top.
Up over the style at the top and got settled in the field at the rear of the mast

Total of 9 x 2m FM contacts and 1 x s2s G/SP-013 M7BIA/P

Back to the car for another chicken sandwich and a brew.

Satnav set for the last one of the day and on to the next one GW/NW-059- Allt y Main

After some pondering I chose the longer walk in using the route on Sotlas ’ From south-east via forest track’ and I parked in the little car park the other side of the gate at the end of track
A few other vehicles present and I just parked on the grass next to van.
Got my kit together and set off. Saw a few people on the way up.

At the summit is a bench which was nice. Again a cracking view from the top. Got setup, mast attached to the bench 2m FM ladder line antenna up and off we went.
Got a few on 2m and then towards the end moved to HF and 2 s2s.

From the summit

The bench with a view!

Quite a few mushrooms on the way up

Total of 5 x 2m FM contacts with 1 x FM s2s G5SHO/P G/SP-015 and 2 x 14mhz s2s F/HB9EAJ/P FL/VO-170 & HA5OT/P HA/ND-015

Back down to the car past a young couple having as the lady described ‘We are just having a philosophical chat’.
Back to the car in 35mins and time for a change of footwear, a fresh brew and the last chicken sandwich

On the way home down the lanes when going slow I could hear a slight knocking noise - again another job to add to the list. Got on the main road and more pondering about the knocking noise so I decided to stop in a layby and have a quick look.

4 of the 5 wheel nuts had come lose…Well thats not good. Out with the breaker bar and 27mm socket and got my nuts tight. Surprisingly this fixed the issue.
Moral of the story check your nuts (and the ones on your vehicle)

Total miles travelled 150
Total time about 10 hours
Estimated distance walked 11km/6.8miles

Thanks to the chasers the other activators

5 Likes

I nearly lost the nearside front wheel on my old HiLux. That tyre was well worn so I swapped it with the spare which was much less worn but had been used. I nipped round to a mate’s as he had bought a trolley jack which is easier to use than the provided jack. Tyres swapped and the job was good. Till 2 weeks later when coming back from a contest weekend a shake started in the steering. Slowed down and it went away, speed up it came back. I thought I’d lost a balance weight so I kept driving a bit slower. Then the shake appeared again and got worse. I was on the M74 and thought I could come off and drive back slowly on A roads. Then I noticed gently apply brakes and shake vanished, lift of and shake was back. I pulled over to check and the centre trim was missing and the bolt were all very obviously loose. Tightened back and we were sorted.

What had happened is there is a tiny lip the wheel needed to be centred on then tightened. But we’d missed and the wheel was not perfectly aligned. With a few hundred miles the ever so slight off-centre caused the bolts to slacken and if I’d not stop they would have all eventually fallen out and the wheel would have come off with unpleasant and expensive consequences. I’d never bothered to recheck the tighteness after a week or so. What’s sad is when I was younger and did more work on cars myself I would always have checked them the bolts/nuts a week after. You get old and you get lazy.

Lesson learnt.

3 Likes

Im going to guess nearside front.

1 Like

Good guess Fraser - quite correct. Its almost like you expect it to happen…

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It has done. Several times. Two near misses and two occasions where I was driving a 3 wheeler.

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Ouch. Brown trousers time. I wonder why that corner?