Radio, and slate.

Aerial view of Llanberis slate quarry under snow.  (C) MW1CFN

 

Recently, the slate quarrying landscape of Wales was awarded UNESCO World Heritage status.  It's not before time, because it's not much of an exaggeration to say that, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, these Welsh quarries roofed the world.

Half a mountain removed by the slate quarrying industry.  Llanberis, North Wales.

I had some Christmas shopping to do in the afternoon, but once that was done, I couldn't resist heading for the mountains of Snowdonia, and the Llanberis slate quarry, covered in a light dusting of snow on a sunny day.

470 metres up, looking NW over Anglesey.

 

A small parking spot at 470m up has a great view out over Anglesey and the Irish Sea beyond.  It turned out to be a pretty good place for radio, even though the clear horizon is not very wide.

Although I could hear weak signals on 10m, there wasn't much chance of having a QSO, even with FT8.  If people used JT65 and JT9, of course, it probably would be possible.  But they don't do that these days.

Old slate house.

 

You can clearly see the joints in the slate.  The splitting direction is perpendicular to the pressure that made the slate; all information about the original sedimentation direction of the clay was lost during the metamorphism.

I worked my way down to 15m, which wasn't all that brilliant either.  But there were a few American SSB operators there, and I got across to W4UW quite easily at 55, with some QSB.  George was averaging about 57, peaking 59 with me.

I then did some 17m WSPR, to give some numbers to the quality of my location.  And what quality it had!  All other G stations reaching EA8BFK were achieving, on a 1W normalised basis, a median of -6dB (best was +0dB), whilst my Ampro stick was achieving +13dB!

Over across with WA9WTK, the best from other G stations, of which there were only three, was achieving -20dB, whilst I was getting +5dB!

A blast hut, where men would shelter during explosive breaking of the slate.  They knew that a round shape resisted the pressure waves much better than a square one.  Old narrow-gauge railway track over the top for some reason.

 TI4JWC reported a best signal for me of -7dB, whilst the only other G station getting there was reported at -29dB!

KD6RF only heard me from the UK at the time, at a median -24.5dB.

Incline, down which slate trucks used to carry the product to a railway line much lower down.  The incline is now repurposed for carrying electrical cable related to the modern hydroelectric plant.

Iron reduction spots in slate.