The duo of Richard G3CWI and Tom M1EYP were again snubbed by their families, and therefore were, as is increasingly common, "childless" for a SOTA outing on Sunday 1st December 2013. It seems not even winter bonus points will do it for Jimmy M0HGY any more, it has to be a new unique or meeting with a SOTA activator he has not yet met.  Foel Goch GW/NW-039 and Mwdwl-eithin GW/NW-047 with me and Richard failed to tick any of the above boxes for Jimmy, and Liam decided to bail out at 6am that morning. Hence I was uncharacteristically ten minutes early in picking up Richard from across town.

       

A good drive through drizzle delivered us to Ruthin for a breakfast at the Wetherspoons pub there. I indulged in the Eggs Benedict and a mug of coffee. We then continued down the A494 and onto the A5, before turning into the country lanes through Llangwm and up to the usual parking spot beside the track to Cwm-llan.  Despite this being a very easy walk, I never enjoy the initial slog up a couple of sloping fields. Nonetheless, this only takes around 15 to 20 minutes, and then comes the always-enjoyable level walk along the lip of Cwm-llan. Then it was time to pass through the gate and climb the stile into the field on the right, and follow the faint trodden meandering path up to the summit.

Richard insisted it was my turn to have first choice of operating spot. Unfortunately, I didn't fully realise the significance of this, and so accepted a nice sheltered position a few metres in lee of the trig point.  On 24MHz, I made 39 QSOs, which were 3 each on SSB amd PSK31, and 33 on CW. I was able to hear and identify Steve GM1INK/P on Blackwood Hill GM/SS-199, but couldn't make myself heard. Nonetheless, a S2S contact did arrive in the form of Gyula HA2VR/P on Bugyihó HA/KM-008. Best DX, by some distance, was YV - Venezuela.

About the time that I had run out of stations to work on 12m, Richard had completed his sweep of 15m down to 40m on his multiband aerial, and was also ready to descend. The gradient of Foel Goch is very "descent friendly", so the return to the car was reasonably quick.  We now headed over to Mwdwl-eithin GW/NW-047 for the day's other planned activation.