{"id":259,"date":"2017-11-11T13:53:32","date_gmt":"2017-11-11T13:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/?page_id=259"},"modified":"2021-07-15T15:25:15","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T15:25:15","slug":"black-mountain-2017","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/sota-summits-on-the-air\/welsh-summits\/black-mountain-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Mountain 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

GW\/SW-041 \u2013 A Pleasant Surprise<\/h2>\n

It had rained all through the night before and was still raining when we woke.\u00a0 The forecast said it would rain all day, especially on the hills.\u00a0 To say the outlook was not good would be a bit of an understatement. With this in mind I planned for a wet day.<\/p>\n

The drive over to South Wales was grey but by now the rain had at least stopped.\u00a0 As I headed north up the Abergavenny road the clouds descended until\u00a0 the foothills lost their tops.\u00a0 By the time I reached Abergavenny even the church steeple was lost to the cloud, but as I left the town behind the cloudbase started to rise again and slowly the black mountain emerged.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Hay Bluff from the car park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Arriving at the car park (SO 239 373) revealed a fine view of Hay Bluff with just a hint of low cloud hovering over the ridge and no sign of the promised rain.\u00a0 The nearest postcode for the sat nav is\u00a0HR3 5RJ but this is some way down the road to the South West so pay attention as you get nearer!<\/p>\n

There is a path to the right of the car park.\u00a0 It leaves the road about half way between the car park and the road junction.\u00a0 This path should be used if possible to minimise erosion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Obligatory trig point photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once you reach the ridge turn north east towards the trig point marking the top of Hay Bluff.\u00a0 It looks like this has recently been repainted and it now sports a very fetching red Welsh dragon.\u00a0 The trig point is located at 677m so is just below the activation zone (AZ), don\u2019t be tempted to set up here, it is an easy route from here into the AZ and well worth continuing.\u00a0 The path along the ridge is obvious and has been made up as required to avoid having to trudge through the boggy top.\u00a0 The path forms part of the \u2018Offa\u2019s Dyke Path\u2019 which roughly follows the line of the English-Welsh border.<\/p>\n

So far the weather gods had been kind to me with the bulk of the cloud remaining just above the summits, at one point I even had a few minutes of sunshine appear.\u00a0 You will see an obvious rise ahead of about 40m which will take you well into the AZ.\u00a0 Once you have climbed this last small rise you are within 1-2m height of the summit, anywhere along here choose a spot to set up.\u00a0 In good weather this is a very well used path so do make sure you keep it clear.\u00a0 The actual summit itself is not marked so to find the exact spot will require either a GPS or some advanced navigational skills.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I set up the station on the Welsh side of the path as I intended operating using my MW prefix.\u00a0 If you set up on the other side of the path you should presumably operate without the Welsh prefix, but as the summit has a Welsh SOTA classification this could lead to confusion.\u00a0 After a couple of calls of \u201cCQ SOTA\u201d on the calling channel I soon had the usual pileup.\u00a0 Moving down to channel S19 I rapidly worked 12 QSOs in the space of about half an hour.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The cloud descends<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whilst I was operating I didn\u2019t see anyone else on the path, the poor weather forecast must have put people off.\u00a0 By this time the cloud had descended below the summit level and visibility was down to less than 100m.\u00a0 Before I packed the station away I stopped and had my lunch at which point I heard voices and a couple of walkers appeared out of the cloud.\u00a0 They stopped to have a chat and were very interested to hear all about SOTA.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The station<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The return route is simple enough, back along the same route I came up on, as always pay attention and don\u2019t miss the left fork just after the first small descent.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Brecons ponies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I arrived back at the car there were a couple of ponies there that had decided to check the verges.\u00a0 This explained the well kept look of the flatter section.<\/p>\n

All together this was a great day out on the hills, much better than anticipated and so all the more enjoyable for the pleasant surprise.\u00a0 Certainly a route I shall look forward to doing again when the points roll around once more.<\/p>\n

Journey Details<\/h3>\n

Date \u2013 11th November 2017<\/p>\n

Postcode \u2013 HR3 5RJ (see text)<\/p>\n

Parking \u2013 SO 239 373<\/p>\n

Radio \u2013 Kenwood TH-D74 + 50W PA on 2m<\/p>\n

Antenna \u2013 2 ele dipole<\/p>\n

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

Contacts \u2013 12<\/p>\n

SOTA points \u2013 6<\/p>\n

Group \u2013 Myself<\/p>\n

GW\/SW-041 Log<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Walking Route Summary<\/h3>\n

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

GW\/SW-041 \u2013 A Pleasant Surprise It had rained all through the night before and was still raining when we woke.\u00a0 The forecast said it would rain all day, especially on the hills.\u00a0 To say the outlook was not good would be a bit of an understatement. With this in mind I planned for a wet … Continue reading Black Mountain 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-259","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\/259","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=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1400,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/259\/revisions\/1400"}],"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=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}