19th February 2006 - On the Offa's Dyke Path, down from Moel Famau GW/NW-044, I caught Liam up on the final bend before the car park, where I found him ambling along, alone, and singing away at the top of his voice.  I looked ahead to see that Jimmy was already halfway up Foel Fenlli.  Liam and myself commenced the more graded Offa's Dyke Path / fort route to the summit, but he was painfully slow and it took an age to make the summit.

The wind was even stronger, and it was even colder, so we sat down in the heather using the summit cairn as shelter as best we could.  In order to minimise the summit stay time, we simply attached a rubber duck aerial to the FT-817 and resolved to to make just 4 contacts each in short order.  As it was, this became absolutely necessary.  The voltage was showing as 7.9V on the FT-817 screen, and I know from experience that it eliminates very quickly from this point.  I switched power down to 0.5 watts and requested chaser cooperation in helping us achieve the two activations quickly.  Stations stayed on frequency to work both Jimmy and myself with rapid report exchanges and the mission was accomplished. 

Many thanks to the stations that helped out. We decided to descend the steep "tourist path" down to the car park, which was incredibly treacherous, with the slimy mud underfoot on the steep banks appearing to offer less friction than the bobsleigh track in the Turino Winter Olympics.  Liam proved to be the most adept at negotiating this descent, and pulled out a considerable lead over myself who was trying to keep a mighty 18 stones upright.  I, in turn, pulled away from that big scaredy cat Jimmy.  He slows up painfully on steep descents does our Jimmy - just ask G1INK. I called Steve GW7AAV for a chat on the drive home.  We started on simplex, then he tracked me via GB3CR, GB3MP and GB3MN repeaters all the way to Chelford.  I then tuned to S21 for the GB2RS news from Keele University ARS to complete the journey.

Thanks to the following stations, worked on 2m FM, the first two on 2.5 watts, the rest on 0.5 watts: