{"id":239,"date":"2017-09-09T13:26:47","date_gmt":"2017-09-09T13:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/?page_id=239"},"modified":"2021-07-15T15:58:45","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T15:58:45","slug":"pen-y-fan-and-corn-du-2017","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/sota-summits-on-the-air\/welsh-summits\/pen-y-fan-and-corn-du-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Pen y Fan and Corn Du 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

GW\/SW-001 \u2013 SOTA virgin<\/h2>\n

I chose Pen y Fan as my first SOTA summit as a quick and easy win.\u00a0 It\u2019s a mountain I am very familiar with so could focus primarily on the radio side.\u00a0 It\u2019s also the highest mountain in the Brecon Beacons so I figured it would give me the best chance of getting a signal out.\u00a0 Not really knowing what to expect I just took my 2m\/70cm fm handie to see what could be done.\u00a0 I had \u2018spotted\u2019 my attempt on the SOTA website, but at this stage didn\u2019t have the SMS service up and running so couldn\u2019t self spot from the top.<\/p>\n

We arrived at the layby at the foot of the climb only to find it was absolutely packed.\u00a0 Probably more than a hundred cars, it was clearly going to be a busy day on the mountain.\u00a0 We eventually found\u00a0the only remaining space to park which was\u00a0in a very large puddle. It made for some interesting gymnastics getting out of the car and kitted up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Pen y Fan summit from the top of Corn Du<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As\u00a0expected, the climb up was very straightforward.\u00a0 We reached the saddle within about 45 mins then decided to take the path up to Corn Du before passing over to Pen y Fan.\u00a0 At the top of Corn Du I put a call out on the 2m FM calling channel not really expecting to hear anything much.<\/p>\n

To my great surprise I immediately received a response back with a good strong signal.\u00a0 Unfortunately as I wasn\u2019t expecting the reply I wasn\u2019t ready to log the call, but I think it was from\u00a0GW7MMG.\u00a0 I let him know that I wasn\u2019t quite at the summit yet and could he please stand by for ten mins.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
View from Pen y Fan looking towards Cribyn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Quickly dropping down the back of Corn Du and up to Pen y Fan summit we were met at the top by the usual coach parties of tourists.\u00a0 We managed to find a clear spot to stand and I put out a call of \u2018CQ SOTA\u2019.<\/p>\n

Straight away I was rewarded by three QSO\u2019s back to back, clearly this was going to work.\u00a0 Another CQ call and I had my fourth in the log.\u00a0 Not bad for 5w FM on a hand held, all in the space of about 10 mins.<\/p>\n

A little bonus<\/h3>\n

Flushed with success we sat down to eat lunch near the far edge of the summit plateau trying to avoid the crowds coming and going to the summit cairn.\u00a0 Whilst there I idly tuned the radio back to my usual settings on our local repeater, expecting that the next time I would use it would be when back at home the next day.\u00a0 Incredibly I heard the ident transmitted by GB3WH in Swindon, our local 2m repeater.\u00a0 Hardly believing my ears I put out a call, but although the repeater acknowledged me no one replied.\u00a0 Spurred on by this I then tried GB3TD on 70cm, also in Swindon, I was rewarded\u00a0 by a QSO with someone in Abingdon.\u00a0 Unfortunately again I never managed to log the call but signal both ways was strong and clear.\u00a0 I checked when I got home and this was a 178Km QSO back to the repeater, not bad for 70cms!<\/p>\n

Journey Details<\/h3>\n

Date \u2013 9th September 2017<\/p>\n

Postcode \u2013 LD3 8NL<\/p>\n

Parking \u2013 SN 987 199<\/p>\n

Radio \u2013 Kenwood TH-D74<\/p>\n

Antenna \u2013 Nagoya NA771<\/p>\n

Band \u2013 144 FM<\/p>\n

Contacts \u2013 4<\/p>\n

SOTA points \u2013 8<\/p>\n

Group \u2013 Myself and Peter<\/p>\n

GW\/SW-001 Log\"\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Walking Route Summary<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GW\/SW-001 \u2013 SOTA virgin I chose Pen y Fan as my first SOTA summit as a quick and easy win.\u00a0 It\u2019s a mountain I am very familiar with so could focus primarily on the radio side.\u00a0 It\u2019s also the highest mountain in the Brecon Beacons so I figured it would give me the best chance … Continue reading Pen y Fan and Corn Du 2017<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":199,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,14,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-south-wales","category-summits-on-the-air","category-welsh-summits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1450,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/239\/revisions\/1450"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}