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Foel Goch 2019

 

Tuesday 31st December 2019 - New Year's Eve

Gig:  Serious Hat Band

Venue:  Iscoyd Park, Whitchurch

Tom M1EYP        Foel Goch summit

I deliberated for some time over a suitable summit to activate en route to my New Year's Eve gig.  Whatever selection was made, I knew I would have to drive beyond the gig venue anyway, if I was to undertake a points scoring activation.  Eventually it dawned on me that I had not done Foel Goch in 2019; it was the ideal summit - not too far beyond my place of work for the evening, and a fairly easy, relatively quick and straight-forward walk - yet attracting four points plus a further three courtesy of the winter bonus.  Perfect!

Foel Goch        Trig point, cairn and marker stone on Foel Goch

I parked along the long cul-de-sac down to Cwm-llan and started the walk up the grassy slope rising above the glacial valley.  I took the SB5 and tablet, hoping to catch the tail-end of the recent remarkable tropo and some tasty FT8 DX. 

Tom M1EYP        Soundcheck

At the saddle I turned right and followed the faint grassy and occasionally boggy path as it weaved up towards the summit.  At the top it was very windy, and with a touch of rain it was unpleasantly hostile!  Any lingering thoughts of setting up for WSJT-X operation on VHF were immediately dismissed, and I went for it on the 2m handheld.  It turned out I'd left the feeder in the car anyway!

Sheet music ready for first dance        Preparing for work

Happily, five minutes operating brought five QSOs, including S2S with Caroline M3ZCB/P and Martyn M1MAJ/P who were on Fair Snape Fell G/SP-007.  This was activation #388 in the year for me, beating my previous record of 367 set in 2018.  Happy New Year everyone!

Rasmus & Tom        Full dancefloor!

Time

Call

Band

Mode

S2S

14:54z

M3ZCB/P

144MHz

FM

G/SP-007

14:55z

M1MAJ/P

144MHz

FM

G/SP-007

14:56z

2E0XLG/P

144MHz

FM

 

14:57z

MW0IDX

144MHz

FM

 

14:59z

MW0WMW

144MHz

FM