The positivity on Tuesday 17th July 2012 continued. For lunch was taken in
the university refectory, and the spicy paprika pork and rice was fantastic! Oh
how I miss university refectories! Anyway, as I left the campus, I thought
to myself "You know, Foel Goch GW/NW-039 isn't that far away for an easy four
points..."! Start counting those schoolboy errors now...
I made it down to the A5 and through Llangollen OK, through Corwen and past the
A494. I even found the left turn for Llangwm at the first time of asking. But
now my fading memory, lack of OS map and lack of Jimmy began to bite. It took my
three goes to locate the correct single track road down to the parking spot for
Foel Goch. It took me longer as well, for being on my own I had to deal with the
gates on the gated road all by myself - how irritating!
Once parked on the patch of grass under the trees, and made sure it was a bit I
would get back off easily enough, it was on with the boots and rucksack again.
The plod up the hill was a bit of a slog but then I recalled a nice easy flat
bit around the lip of Cwm-llan. Ha! It was churned and bogged up to the
max, and was a real pain to negotiate. I reached the top gate, but didn't
fancy climbing over the fence (I think I may have forgotten about a stile or
gate a little further along). So I decided to walk up on the right hand side of
the fence and angle into the summit from that side. This was pure idiocy. I had
no map and no compass. The clag was right down and I was experimenting with an
unfamiliar route.
I continued to angle around to the left while gaining height. I had the
sensation of being close to the summit, but was reduced to randomly trying
different bumps, lumps and hillocks as they loomed out of the mist. Visibility
was down to around 20 feet and it was nigh on impossible to get a rough idea of
the surrounding topography. I found a bit of a track and followed it. When
it went down, I thought it was a little saddle I remember just before the
summit. Except this one continued to go down. I halted myself and reversed the
direction. This time, the trig point did loom out of the mist, and also the
cairn and milestone that accompany it on the summit.
The fog was so thick that I couldn't see where the sun might be. I couldn't tell
from the ground which should be the main path for the descent. I couldn't
remember from my previous visits whether the milestone and cairn were slightly
north, or south of the trig point! But I remembered the advice in The
Hillwalkers Manual when faced with such a predicament - and that was to have a
rest and allow yourself some thinking time. So I cracked on with the 30m
set-up. It was very difficult to get the dipole up in fierce winds, but
eventually I did, and once up, it stayed up. However, the Rockmite was not
playing. Conditions were probably to blame, but now no-one could hear my 174mW
on 10.115MHz CW.
17-Jul-12
Battery: #1. Activation: #18
Summit: GW/NW-039. Band: 30m
Radio: Rockmite 30
Antenna: Inverted V Dipole @ 6m agl
Battery: Duracell Pro-Life
Finish Voltage at room temp: Not a clue
New DXCCs: 0
Cumulative DXCCs: 19 (9A, DL, G, GM, HA, HB, I, LA, LZ, OE, OK, OM, OZ, PA, RA,
S5, SM, SP, SV)
QSOs: 0. Cumulative QSOs: 68
I resorted to 2m FM from the VX7-R handheld. At least this would give me an
opportunity to wave the radio around and try to determine some directions. I
made three contacts, and got a vague (but not confident) idea of where north
was. And then my VX7-R ran out of charge! Back on the Rockmite, but still
no takers. So for the first time today, the FT-817 was called into action.
Suddenly, from not being heard anywhere on 30m, I was called from Portugal! Five
QSOs on 30m CW took me to 8 for the activation, and a comfortable qualification
for one that was looking decidedly dicey only a few minutes earlier!
I packed up and followed what I had decided was likely to be the correct route
off the summit. Happily, it was indeed correct, and 30 minutes later I was back
at the car. For most of the journey home, I had Jimmy 2E0EYP to keep me
company via the repeater known as GB3MN. Sadly, he was not in the car with me.
If he had have been, then presumably I would have joined the A55, instead of
continuing on the A483 into Chester. And joined the M56, instead of continuing
on the M53 virtually to Birkenhead. Still, it had been a day of schoolboy
errors. A few more wouldn't hurt. Many thanks to all callers:
G1NVY |
144MHz |
FM |
MW0VTK/M |
144MHz |
FM |
M3KIN |
144MHz |
FM |
CT1BQH |
10MHz |
CW |
DJ5AV |
10MHz |
CW |
DF5WA |
10MHz |
CW |
DC8MH |
10MHz |
CW |
PA0WLB |
10MHz |
CW |
|