GW/SW-006 – Fan Gyhirych – 725m – 6 Points

This was my 2nd attempt for Fan Gyhirych and I took the direct approach from the West. So far 25th December was the “driest” day around XMAS 2012 although local climate was rain and high wind. This was my first activation with a new station setup.

A few weeks ago I bought a KX3 as a kit from Elecraft and I will retire my K2 used so far. High wind is an issue here in South Wales compared to DL/HB where hills below 1800m are covered with trees. Instead of my 2x 6.7m (2x 22ft) long doublet I moved to a 13.4m (44ft) long inverted L. Furthermore, I was using five radials 4m long each. The Spieth pole was replaced by a SOTA pole and in total I could save more than 1kg in weight to carry up the hill.

Unfortunately I left the guying kit for the SOTA pole at home and therefore I had to use the trig point on the op of Fan Gyhirych. Unfortunately the direction of the wind was coming directly towards the corner of the trig point but with help of two ropes I managed to fix the SOTA pole. KX3, Lipo, logbook, … had to be placed on top of the structure and with high winds and hail I quit just after 5 QSO although many more stations were calling. Sorry for that. I didn’t want to risk my station to fall into the water surrounding the trig point. In summary the KX3 & Inv L worked perfectly and signals were peaking S9+.

25 December 2012: 13:52 – 13:56UTC

Temperature around 5C with rain and wind.

Rig: KX3, 10W, 4400mAh LiPo
Ant: SOTApole, 13.1m Inv. L, 5x 4m Radial

5 CW QSO on 7’032.7 kHz

Car park: 51.8638 N / 3.6403 W, 389m.

Hiking statistics – uphill only:
Time: 50 min, including taking pictures
Distance: 1.5 km
Total Ascend: 360 m
Total Descend: 10 m

: Fan Gyhirych climbed from NW. Descend was towards W (lower line).

: Start of my hike.

: This 180 degreees shot was done just before the steepest climb. That’s about 100m in elevation to go and the sheep made nice steps for me to use.