My location (QTH) is about 2 miles from the town of Llanbedr Pont Steffan (that’s Lampeter in English) close to the river Teifi. Although I’m situated near the bottom of a valley - so not especially good for VHF and UHF operation - I’m surrounded by tall trees and open fields in all directions which allows me to experiment with some VERY large LF and HF wire antennas! My Radio Shack is situated at about 60m above sea level with the hillside rising steeply to around 225m in a North Westerly direction over about 300m but I’m fortunate to have the use of just over 25 acres in total.
Lampeter is about 50 miles North West of Cardiff (the Capital City of Wales) and about 15 miles South of the sea side town of Aberystwyth. The Maindenhead locator square for this QTH is IO72XD. The WAB (Worked All Britain) / OS reference is SN64.
As my side of Lampeter is a really quite poor VHF/UHF location I quite often operate portable on a Tuesday evening. During these RSGB UKAC contests (depending on the weather) I try to active IO72 on all of the VHF/UHF Bands - 6m to 23cm - from either a forestry commission site in IO72WF near Aberaron or IO72UC nearer to Lampeter. Both are hill top sites approximately 1,000ft ASL.
Lampeter and the local area:
Lampeter is home of Trinity Saint David and as such is the smallest university town in both Wales and the United Kingdom. It is around 1 hour 30 minuets from Swansea and about 45 minuets drive from Aberystwyth and Carmarthen. Aberystwyth is in the heart of Cardigan Bay where Dolphins and other marine mammals can be spotted quite regularly. Within a few miles of Lampeter there are the remains of a number of Roman forts and encampments, ancient woodlands, acres of unspoiled countryside and lots of sheep!