Radio, Photos, Linux and things in my world

the solid old town keeps going on tourist money - although the streets were quite quiet this August when we were there.

We visited the area around the cultural centre - but
there was nothing on show inside the building - the
town has a nice market on Wenesdays, but its quite
a busy place all week.

They have place which I think is where the original Welsh parliament met for a short period - thus claiming to be the real or first Welsh capital. At least Glydwr didn't run off to live in France.

At the end of the Talyllyn railffordd its time to run around - a 20minte stop for a cuppa
and watch while the steam engine goes around a loop to pull back the 100year-old-plus
coaches your rattle along in.

Really I'm please these old coaches still run on the original railway they are designed for.
Sitting inside the coach gives a feeling of how it must have felt all those years ago - some coaches dont have windows and generally everything is very sparce. Not a problem - it got us there and back. Excellently run railway.

Castle Bere which is near Abergnolwyn and along a long single track road where you really dont want to meet a bigger vehicle than yours.

More of ruins now - since the English took it in the 1250s or something like that. You can see why its logical as a castle when looking from this location.

Went to a nice place up a very very steep hill near to Abertyfi - a place called Plas Panteidas (sorry if thats spelled wrong) and stayed in the (soon to be retired) Revd George G3RJV's chalet which was so peaceful and has amazing views. Ideal for the Welsh coast - Tywyn and that area - visit Macynlleth and around the valleys and hills.

I used the radio kindly installed there to work a few stations - Althought it was a low power- QRP station, I heard more DX than usual at home - being on top of a hill and using a wire thrown up in the trees really did the trick A W3EDP antenna which worked very well - I heard stations way down in the South part of Africa. Piles ups were too much and I just couldn't get through to them.

The holiday was good - sun.. yes,, even some sun. We visited a few places. like the Centre for Alternative Energy and Tywyn and went on the Talyllyn steam rail way.

This was a contest setup - I was using one radio a Yaesu FT897D which is small compared to the old valve radions - and its little relation on top the FT917ND was used for local monitoring on VHF/UHF

Note the station cats.. Mac at the front on duty and Mungo waiting, pretending sleep for the graveyard shift (or more food).

Waiting for the off - the 2m station - once begun the opertor - right will have a logger who double checks the other station in the list that it hasn't been logged before and keeps the computer based log upto date.

These things usually run for 24hrs but some are 48hours straight through and can be difficult. I operate from home normally on various contests and have been known to get a certificate here and there.

Telford and District Radio Society G3ZME - of whom I rejoined again this year after a 27 year gap.. (!) do many contests and I went up to photograph the stations - I coudn't stay for the 24 hours but it was a really fine weekend for it.

Our valley was featured on TV when a small brook became a torrent of muddy water and flooded out a few houses - my old school mate Terry Allan's mum was one of them - I went down our woods (no mean feat!) and photograped the house at the bottom.

As you can see .. the residents have big problems. Much the same across the UK

And they Still want to build on flood planes....

We have access to a caravan for holidays and weekends away - its in Newtown and is
located in a very quiet area but with a very noisy road nearby - this quietens down
in evenings.

A photo of Pams car in the drive when we visited them in May.

Its massive and unlike a caravan of old .. inside.