Tuesday 19th April 2011 was, necessarily, a long day. The main business was to drop my crocked FT-897 in with Geoff GW4AQU at Castle Electronics. The output power was down and the receive dreadful. When it wasn't playing deaf, it was playing both sidebands. At least top band could sound busy! Anyway, the filters needed replacing, apparently a common fault with this vintage of 897.

   

The perfect plan would have been to take a trip with Jimmy and activate our nearest unactivated SOTA hill - Upper Park GW/MW-032. But there's more chance of catching up with Roy G4SSH in the chaser table than getting permission from the Powis Castle Estate at present. Next choice would have been to whiz around some of the local one-pointers, and pack them in between drop-off and pick-up. How many of Long Mountain-Beacon Ring GW/MW-026, Y Golfa GW/NW-061, Mynydd-y-briw GW/NW-060 and Stingwern Hill GW/MW-030 could be crammed in between 9am and 5pm? There is also Allt-y-Main GW/NW-059 and Moel y Golfa GW/MW-027, but probably not as part of a 3/4 summit sorte against the clock!

   

That sort of concept was blown away when Marianne announced she was working on the day the radio was booked in. This brought Liam into the picture, and a big rethink. Inspiring him to get out of bed that early in the school holidays would be challenging enough.  A plan was hatched. Liam's mate Daniel (son of Sean M0GIA) was invited to join us for a day out on the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway. We set off, around 7.40am BST and followed the A534 across Cheshire to the A483. Castle Electronics is just outside the village of Llanfair Caereinion - the other end of the WLLR. However, after dropping the 897 in, we were just too late for the train from there, so I drove back to Welshpool.

       

As it turned out, this worked well, and the enjoyable return rail journey was punctuated by lunch at the Llanfair Caereinion station tearooms. Upon leaving Welshpool station, we had to drive to Llanfair Caereinion for our third visit there that day, to collect the now fixed 897 from Geoff. And that left me with a little bit of playtime! 

From the A458 north of Welshpool, I drove up the narrow country lanes onto the top road across Long Mountain. We parked in a space at the side of the road at SJ268055, virtually opposite the access road to the transmitter site. In gloriously hot sunny weather, we walked up the track to the hillfort. Daniel was fascinated by the Iron Age earthworks and was enthused with the whole area.  In the wooded area within Beacon Ring, we located the trig point, and then the 'dens', which appear to have been somewhat trashed! Liam and Dan sat down to play DS and the like, while I set up the 40m dipole. It was a very enjoyable activation with 40 QSOs on 7MHz CW, including three summit-to-summits: OE/DJ5RE/P on Kulmberg OE/ST-366, HA2VR/P on Margita HA/KM-028 and MW0ECX/P on Y Llethr GW/NW-017.

   

While packing away, I suddenly remembered that I had a SOTA talk to deliver at the Chester radio club that night. Driving back to Macclesfield, then outward to Chester with Jimmy wouldn't make it in time. Fortunately, Marianne came to the rescue by offering to meet me at Chester services on the M56, passing Jimmy - and my laptop over to me, while collecting Liam and Dan to take back to Macclesfield. That certainly spared me considerable embarrassment that would have been caused by my dreadful oversight!

   

As it was, Jimmy was prepped up (as ever) with the directions to the club venue, and a good evening was enjoyed there. A decent turn out was there for the SOTA talk, including a few known activators and chasers. The drive back to Macclesfield was tiring to say the least, after the long day. But the radio was fixed, a SOTA talk was given, the WLLR was enjoyed, and I did an activation.  Another long sunny day in Wales! Time for some of the same in England...!  Many thanks to all callers to this activation: