Richard G3CWI, Jimmy and myself had a day out in deepest Wales today. We all got along tremendously with each other. We also took both Jane and Penelope, who had not met before, and did not exactly hit it off. In fact they spent most of the day bickering and arguing much to our disdain. Jane had been given the job of navigating for the day, but Penelope was not happy and sulked all day.

Both Jimmy and myself slept through our alarms but fortunately 30 minutes of BBC Radio 5 Live on my clock radio awoke me half-an-hour late at 6.30am. We hurriedly packed the car and got out to pick Richard up at 6.55am. The M56 and A483 delivered us to our breakfast venue (McDonalds), before we continued down the A483 to turn down the A495 and B4396. Then Jane insisted we followed a particular minor road. The rest of us were confused, having expected to be going around more B roads and doubling back to the start point, but Jane insisted she was both confident and correct, so meekly we
followed.

Jane was right and delivered us to the parking spot (SJ 052 204) to start our walk, but not before dragging us over an off-road type track with more pot holes than the entire Yorkshire Dales. Penelope was furious, and the heightened animosity remained for much of the day. There is no doubt that Jane would get along much better with Gwendolyn who is more "her type".

       

Leaving the girls to scrap it out at the parking spot, Richard, Jimmy and myself began the walk ENE back up the track to where the public footpath veers off to the left and up the hill. This path became moderately steep in places as we continued to climb up onto the open moorland. Once back out of the forest, the track bended left and meandered up to the summit of Rhialgwm NW-046, this section not acknowledged by OS Explorer 239.

On this first summit, I started to suffer aches and pains from the previous evening's 90 minutes of football, and fell well-behind Richard. By the time I approached the summit, he was nearly set-up for 40m CW on a slightly lower level with some degree of shelter from the north-westerley wind. Jimmy and I set-up the SOTA Beam and WASP in the heather a few yards East of the trig point. Even 2m FM was dead, but after dragging MW3WZZ away from the Stoke repeater (GB3VT), five more stations quickly followed and activation number 156 and unique summit number 99 was qualified. Richard did not fare so well, with two contacts on 2m, and none on 40m CW. He would hear nothing of my suggestions to use my SOTA Beam for 2m, or borrow my FT-817 to make some phone contacts on 40m, preferring instead to preserve the integrity of his failed activation.