Rhobell Fawr SOTA Activation

Summits On The Air reference GW/NW-021, 6 points.

Activity Summary

  • Date : 10th May 2026
  • Distance : 3.79 km
  • Ascent : 295 m
  • Max Altitude : 734 m
  • Time to Summit : 1:05 hrs
  • Total Activation Time : 3:10 hrs

Weather

  • Cloudy
  • Temperature 7 ℃
  • Feels like 4 ℃
  • Humidity 77%
  • Wind Speed 14 km/h
  • Wind Direction ENE

Equipment Used

  • Icom IC705 (10w)
  • 4000 mAh LiFePO4 battery pack
  • 2m, flowerpot
  • SRH770 antenna
  • FT65 Hand Transceiver
  • SOTABEAMS Carbon 6 pole
  • PoLo logging app on iPad mini

Parking Location What3Words

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Activation Report

The parking spot for this walk up Rohbell Fawr is located high above Rhydymain, at 460 metres above sea level, located at SH 79732 24979. It is reached by following a single track road for a couple of kilometres. There were three gates to open on my visit and the track is good tarmac until you reach SH 79584 24476. From here, the last half a kilometre had several potholes that would require good ground clearance. However, there is a good alternative parking spot just as the tarmac ends, but this would add another kilometre overall to your walk.

The first gate with the track branching to the right.
The parking spot. I tucked in on the verge to keep access to the track clear.

There are several routes on the SOTA mapping page for Rhobell Fawr, they all start from this same start point, see the resource link at the bottom of the blog. Today, I was following a route uploaded by Gerald, MW0WML, labelled as a down route. Last year, I had used Gerald’s up route for both ascent and descent. Which ever way you choose, it’s going to be short and steep. My chosen route did not follow a defined path, and so carful navigation is required to weave through the rocky out crops. It also should be noted, that at several points I was walking across dried out bog. It looks like several sections would be very boggy after a lot of rain. There are several stiles to cross over walls and so there in no need to climb any walls.

The first stile with the summit trig pillar just visible

As I reached the first stile, I could now just make out the summit trig pillar, a welcome sight after a short, but steep climb. I crossed over the stile and then tried to take a straight course to the summit, whilst avoiding some boggy sections. As I got closer, I realised that I had overshot the stile and so had to walk back down the wall a little. Once you have crossed this second stile, you are pretty much on the summit.

The views were amazing with good visibility all around. It was a bit chilly in the wind and so I setup my station just below the summit cairn. By keeping low this just afforded enough shelter to keep warm, with my three layers plus hat and coat. Hard to imagine its May 😀 I deployed my newly repaired and retuned, 2m flowerpot antenna, before setting up the IC705 transceiver.

My operating location, just low enough to give some shelter.

After self spotting 2m SSB calls were steady, and I was happy five SSB contacts in the log. 2m FM was surprisingly quite for a Sunday morning. Ironically my first FM contact was John, M0VCM. It turned out he had been on holiday in Wales the same time last year, and chased me on the same summit with a two day difference. After another four FM contacts, including two summit to summits, the cold was setting in, and so I decided to called it a day. I had just packed away when I had seen a spot from Tom, M1TJM on Scafell Pike, G/LD-001. I grabbed my FT65 out of my rucksack and fitted the SRH770 antenna. I broke cover and huddled by the trig pillar for shelter. I was suddenly aware of how sheltered my activation spot had been, as I sat in the biting wind. With not really much hope of getting Tom, I called summit to summit. To my amazement Tom came back to me, giving me not only a S2S but also a complete Thanks Tom.

Activation log
QSO Map

I packed away and then started to head down. Whilst on the summit I had noticed another stile, this would enable me to descend to the east to cross the wall, saving a few minutes. On my descent even retracing my own GPS track, the route above the gulley was not obvious at first, but easy enough once I was on the right track. Back at the car it was sunbathing weather, very different than the summit 300 metres above.

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