Welcome to Rich, 2W0LGE, from Newport who completed his first SOTA activation at Wentwood (GW/SW-033) on 5 March. Using a home-brew Slim Jim dangled off a tree he fought the interference from the nearby mast to make 8 contacts over a wide area (Bristol, Weston Super Mare, Cheltenham, Caerphilly and a S2S with Neil MW0ECX on Coity Mt SW-012). Despite the mast difficulties (I know them well - not my favourite operating spot, even with a 4 pole helical filter made by M0JLA) and having to hack away at the fallen branches to reach and photograph the trig point,he is keen to try another summit in the near future.
I didn’t witness his first activation but he told me about it when I was on Mynydd Llangorse yesterday and I found the award of his one point in the GW table so has also managed to upload the details which is another hurdle successfully cleared. Many congratulations, Rich and thanks for the contact. I look forward to our first S2S some time this year (I don’t operate from a shack). If you need any help/advice just ask on the reflector and you will be deluged with helpful answers.
Well done on your first activation and thank you for the link to your blog. Hope to work you s2s in the next few months…be warned this activating of SOTA summits gets to be addictive
Cheers Mike and Allan. Hopefully some bits will arrive tomorrow to build a filter, and then it is out to give it a test. Need some way to combat those masts !
Thanks for another S2S Richie when I was on Tor y Foel. I hope you found the way back to your car from Coity Mountain. It is a confusing hill as it so flat on top and I managed to set off in the wrong direction when leaving last time and Rodney wondered where I had gone to… I don’t think you will always be able to rely on navigating using a map on your phone and suggest that you always carry a compass and either a map or a gps. You can get a good idea of the terrain from Streetmap and a useful map at either 1: 50k or 1:25K can be printed out to take with you (once you have got the knack). If you are looking for another summit with good views but fairly easy mapreading/walking then I recommend Tor y Foel (GW/SW-013) although it will be a longer journey for you as it is near Crickhowell. The disadvantage is that it is a long narrow drive up to the parking place (we met a tractor and trailer once…) but the advantage is that the car does most of the climbing for you! I have a feeling that you are catching the SOTA bug eventhough we have tried to warn you that it is rather addictive!
Yeah, Coety was a bit strange, but I was determined to find the high spot. There was a concrete pad in the grass that seemed to be on that small rise there, so I guess that was the reference point. The area didn’t really have any obvious paths when on the ‘flat’ other than a very faint one off in the Big Pit direction.
I have put a post up about activator vs chaser and how to log the s2s contacts correctly as I am still somewhat confused.
I built myself a helical band pass filter yesterday and will be heading back to Wentwood to test it later this afternoon. I have a local police station here at the home qth pumping out pager signals on 153.325mhz or something like that, and it was showing about 30-40db of attenuation, so fingers crossed.
Thanks Richie for the summit to summit on Saturday. I could have waved at you on Coity from Mynydd Carn-y-cefn.
Wentwood and Coity are some of my least favourite summits in GW/SW, so good job picking these off first, you now have the rest of the Brecon Beacons to enjoy
