What a great way to start the season. I had not planned to visit GW/NW-001 until yesterday, when it became clear that the weather was likely to be tolerably good.
Everything went well; no traffic hold ups, and 2 hours 15 mins walk to the top, exactly as my last visit 18 months ago. This time, I wasn’t pushing, and didn’t feel bushed, so I guess the SOTA activating has improved my fitness. Good news for an old codger! None of my contingency time was used, so I was on summit well ahead of the alerted time.
Above about 600m, I was into murky cloud. But for the final 100m or so, the air was clear, and I was walking in bright sunlight, looking out over the cloud base. Breathtaking.
10 mins later, and I was enveloped in cloud again, which slowly thickened throughout the activation.
With very few people around, I was able to set up the VHF antenna just below the highest point, and made a nice run of contacts including 6 S2S - plenty of others out enjoying the first day of Winter :o)
On my last visit, people were jostling for space to sit down like gannets on a rocky island. This time I was able to set up a 40m dipole without anyone noticing. A quick dabble on 5MHz produced a pleasing run of contacts, followed by some more on 7MHz SSB. Running a nominal 5W from the FT817, using just the internal batteries.
I intended to visit 10MHz CW, but after almost 2 hours on the summit, and in wet cloud, I decided it was time to leave.
Many thanks to all contacts, much appreciated.
I took a few photos with my phone, as usual, but they don’t really do it justice:
73
Adrian
G4AZS