Monday 30th December 2019 - "Gaulfest"

Somewhat remarkably, Jimmy and I had never activated this famous summit thus far in the 17 years we had been doing SOTA!  With a "Gaulfest" event set for this date, we made the decision to put that right!

It was a truly great day.  Plynlimon GW/MW-001 was lovely - I couldn’t believe I’d done 17 years of SOTA without doing this hill that is (just about) in daytrippable range.

We started walking in the clag but succeeded in poking through to the sunshine and blue sky to reveal the cloud inversion!  So it was a perfect walking day, simply glorious - and the radio wasn't too bad either!

Every QRG on 2m FM was busy including a very loud French QSO on S20!  I had carried HF gear up with me but for some reason I couldn't be bothered to set it up.  Perhaps I had half a mind on the fact that it was the Gaulfest S2S event, and as such I would want to be focused on 2m FM anyway.  Accordingly, I simply sat by Jimmy and snatched the microphone from him every time a S2S opportunity presented itself!

Jimmy ended up with ten QSOs, including four S2S.  I finished with nine, including three S2S.  We descended and began the substantial drive east to Church Stretton.

It was great to catch up with Jordan M3TMX and Adrian G4AZS in the bakery (Mr Bun the Bakers, Church Stretton) afterwards.  We all hoped participation levels could increase again for Gaulfest 2020!