Tag: IC705

Equipment Used

• 4000 mAh LiFePO4 battery
• Icom IC705
• Flower pot 2m antenna
• 40m EFHW antenna
• SOTABEAMS Carbon 6 pole
• PoLo logging app on iPad mini

Parking Location What3Words

///garden.skillet.swooning

Activation Report

My walk started from the carpark to the North East of the summit. The carpark is at the end of long single track road at SH6837 3020. As you leave the main road (A470), you pass through a gate, it almost feels like you are driving into a farm. Eventually you arrive at the second gate, just through this gate is the parking area, there is room for maybe six cars.

I was on my way and heading up the forest track just before 10am. You walk for nearly 3km of this route on forest track with little ascent. However, this means that most of the 593m of ascent is to be done in roughly 2km, or put another way, its steep!, well actually very steep! I arrived at the point where the path turns south and up at SH6647 2823, I stood there looking at the hill side and checking the map. As my eyes scanned for the path. I could just make out two walkers descending and now the faint path came into view. I started the ascent and soon passed the descending walkers that I had seen earlier. The path is also slippy in places, so care was needed, especially when carrying an 11Kg pack. I quickly made the decision that I was going to descend by a different route.

It took 2 hours and 10 minutes to reach the summit. On arrival I was pleased to see almost clear views. There was at times, the odd bit of cloud that briefly rolled over the summit.

There was a wall running down from the summit making for a nice sheltered location out of the wind, where I setup my station. Today, I was using my IC705 for 2m, running 10w into a flowerpot antenna, mounted on a SOTABEAMS Carbon 6 pole. I had my first 2m QSO in the log at 11:24 UTC followed by 7 more QSO’s. I consider this a good haul on 2m midweek and as always thankful for the regular callers.

Next, I setup the EFHW for HF and started on 20m. I soon had 9, 20m QSO’s and 11, 40m QSO’s in the log. The great thing about using my 40m EFHW, is that it resonant(ish) on 40m and 20m, and so I did not need to use a tuner.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable activation, with 28 QSO’s in the log .

Once I had packed away, I planned my alternative descent, using a route from SOTA mapping. I used the route that had been uploaded by Gerald, MW0WML, titled ‘Avoiding steep ridge’, as it does just that 😂

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