Sunday 19th Febraury 2006, and some more traditional SOTA activating. We had had a slow start to 2006, SOTA-wise, due to illnesses (colds, colds and more colds) and Jimmy flexing his newly-discovered teenage "awkward" muscles.  Amazingly, today saw Jimmy's first activations of the year! We set off from Macclesfield at the appalling time of 8.50am.  I have done some negotiating with Jimmy during the day and should be able to get this back to a more reasonable early start in future.  Anyway, we treated ourselves this morning by breakfasting at the Little Chef after the end of the M56.  Two Olympic breakfasts (bacon, sausage, eggs, beans, mushrooms, toast, saute potatoes) with extra black pudding for me and Jim, and the usual pancakes and maple syrup for Liam.  Creature of habit our Liam.  The textbooks are right about something then. 

Washed down with the mug of coffee and free refill, corporation pop for the boys.  We arrived at the car park between Moel Famau GW/NW-044 and Foel Fenlli GW/NW-051 at around 11.20am, and set off for Moel Famau - the first time we've done them this way around.  The summit was heaving.  We elected the west face of Jubilee Tower os the one that offered the most, albeit meagre shelter from the fierce wind.  It was very cold - probably freezing - with significant windchill.  A walker sat down beside me on the wall, complemented the way that Jimmy and Liam were dressed and equipped and expressed his bewilderment at the inappropriate clothing, footwear and equipment of many others at the summit.  Moel Famau is hardly extreme mountaineering, but in the wind and temperature up there today, it was no place to be for people who didn't know what they were doing! We looked for the Sotacache, but couldn't find it.  Jimmy MW3EYP/P and myself MW1EYP/P worked several S2S contacts, then he set off on the descent after Liam.  I packed up, then went for another look for the Sotacache.  This time I found it, as did two further activators arriving as I was about to leave.

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