Tor y Foel SOTA activation

Summits On The Air Reference GW/SW-013, 2 Points + 3 Winter Bonus points

Activity Summary

  • Date : 22nd February 2026
  • Distance : 1.8 km
  • Ascent : 161 m
  • Max Altitude : 551 m
  • Time to Summit : 0:37 hrs (including chat with farmer)
  • Total Activation Time : 2:07 hrs

Weather

  • Cloudy
  • Temperature 9 ℃
  • Feels like 3 ℃
  • Humidity 87%
  • Wind Speed 22 km/h
  • Wind Direction WSW

Equipment Used

  • Icom IC705 (10w)
  • 2m Flowerpot antenna (homebrew)
  • SOTABEAMS Carbon 6 pole
  • PoLo logging app on iPad mini

Parking Location What3Words

///dusts.resorting.dispensed

Activation Report

Having decided that a motorhome trip to Scotland wasn’t a good idea, given the current weather. We instead booked a cottage in Tal y Bont on Usk, in the Brecon Beacons,(Bannau Brycheiniog). As it turns out, Tal y Bont on Usk is perfectly located for SOTA activations. There are several summits within a 15 or 20 minute drive.
After a leisurely start on Sunday morning, we jumped in the car for the 15 minute drive to the parking spot for Tor y Foel, GW/SW-013. We were the only car parked in the parking spot at SO 10977 18801, where there is room for a few cars to park. As we were setting off, my wife was reading something engraved in the wall. A passing farmer saw her reading the inscription and jumped out of his tractor to talk to us. He was a very friendly guy, and went on to explain the inscription was a memorial to a man that had sadly passed away in 2014. The inscription reads ‘If you don’t climb the mountain, You can’t see the view’ a very true sentiment.

The farmer continued, that someone had also engraved the poem ‘Yellow’ into some rocks about a third of the way up Tor y Foel, as another memorial. After some searching we did manage to find the engraving of the poem.

Within just over half an hour of setting off, we were on the summit of Tor y Foel enjoying the views.

We found a hollow just off the summit to use as an operating location out of the wind. Using the usual setup for this year, I deployed the 2m flowerpot antenna on the carbon 6 pole and powered up the IC705. I spotted on 2m SSB and for the first time this year nothing, nada. So after a few minutes I swapped to 2m FM. First in the log was Richard M1HAX on GW/SW-009. This was followed by another very slow 3 contacts, including another S2S with MW0KEC on GW/SW-007.
I gave 2m SSB another go, but still no takers. With the summit just about qualified, I packed away and we started to make our way down. Luckily, I saw a 2m spot from Viki,M6BWA on GW/SW-010. So I grabbed the FT65 from my rucksack, and soon had my 3rd S2S and 5th contact in the log. It was only when speaking to Viki, that I realised it was 433 alive event. Maybe this was why on a Sunday morning 2m chasers were not around. In summary I had 5 QSO’s on 2m FM, with 3 if them being S2S.

Activation log
Last QSO with the HT, trying to shelter the mic from the wind.

Tor y Foel turned out to be popular summit, as we were about to head down, I met Matt, GW4MAT. He had just arrived to activate the summit. In addition, Richard M1HAx had already said he was heading over to activate Tor y Foel. The summit is a nice easy summit although, I can imagine the parking spot being very busy in summer.

The interactive map below shows a track of the route taken. You can zoom in or out to change the scale. The map can also be shown in full screen. The GPX track can also be downloaded using the link below the map.

Download file for GPS

Further information can be found on the SOTA resource page for the summit