The influencing factors on Saturday 4th November 2006 were Marianne (my XYL) having nights to work on both Saturday and Sunday, and Paul Ince's Macclesfield Town revolution scheduled to continue at Wrexham at 3pm. Another influencing factor was Jimmy insisting that he had "better get the Ponderosa pair done, to be safe". I had done these in January, but Jimmy opted out of that expedition at the time. He was now concerned that someone might catch him up in the SOTA Beams Challenge. I suspect there would be more chance of a new SOTA association from 1S (answers on a postcard...).

So I thought that if we stayed in a Youth Hostel near Wrexham after the match, we could bag Cyrn-y-Brain GW/NW-043 and Moel y Gamelin GW/NW-042 on the Sunday morning. We could even grab Great Orme GW/NW-070 after the match on Saturday as that would be OK for a torchlit expedition. Problems were: No Youth Hostels anywhere near Wrexham (Llangollen is groups only, while any others nearby have been closed down by the Association which still purports to encourage people to visit the countryside, but in reality seems to be encouraging us to visit large city centres). Also, I didn't actually realise how much further out Great Orme still was from Wrexham - it's only supposed to be a small country, Wales, isn't it?). Oh yes, and I forgot to pack the SOTA Beam, my only system with a PL259 or BNC connector, which meant that the 817 was also out of action for the weekend. Still, we didn't let a few problems stop us,  we pressed ahead and did everything we had intended.

Wrexham 0, Macclesfield 0. Brilliant match at the Racecourse Ground, shame we hit the post instead of getting the winner near the end.  Later, we arrived on Great Orme car park about 6.30pm, and it was here that I realised that the SOTA Beam was left at home. Loads of other people were up Great Orme firework spotting, or even setting them off from the summit. Jimmy and I had no joy on our handhelds, so returned to the car which was only 5 minutes walk away. Here, I got into the Royal Navy Net from Merseyside, and got some interest. We reascended and managed to work two of those stations, but not the others, but thankfully two more stations followed us back to the calling channel and the job was a good 'un. We enjoyed spectacular views of display fireworks going off all around the bay as we drove down the hill. We had a great evening meal in the Bengal Palace in Colwyn Bay, before reaching the Premier Travel Inn in Gresford near Wrexham just in time for Match of the Day and a very comfortable night's sleep.  

Many thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with 2.5 watts: