GW8DX.com - GW8DX Station Build

This is very much a 'blood, sweat and tears' effort and not an unlimited budget, unlimited time/retirement mega-station type build. Things progress according to time, energy, budget and labour exchanged. Due to poor access up a steep 1.25 mile mountain track, approximately 90 tons of concrete were mixed using a tractor-mounted 'pan mixer' for the GW8DX shack, the first three tower bases and associated guy points etc. The raw materials were all transported to site using a tractor and trailer at great cost when compared to a ready mix truck delivering to a typical site with reasonable access.

Tomos, who is 6'3, stood in the hole for the Versatower BP120XHD concrete base for scale.

The groundworks crew having a chin-wag in between concrete mixes at GW8DX.

My eldest son, Jack Jnr, standing in one of the many guy point holes for scale. These holes alone swallowed huge amounts of concrete but at 1000' ASL in West Wales, risks should be avoided where possible.

The 31' x 16' house-spec, purpose built shack takes shape.

My old mate, Ian/G3WVG (who has been hugely helpful during the move to GW) during his latest visit where he kindly installed some temporary receive antennas that enabled us to check local noise levels. As you would expect for such a remote locations, no issues were identified. Expect to hear more from MW5A/MW5B from this site!

Good friend and well-known Radio Amateur, Don/G3BJ, was an early visitor to the GW8DX site and has provided lots of invaluable support and advice to me over the years. Without doubt, Don is one of the good guys in our hobby and life in general.

>1000' of huge 120mm² mains cable was delivered to a local spot and collected with my 4x4 and trailer combo due to poor site access. Due to the amount of shale/granite here, a deep trench of >1000' was dug with a 13 ton excavator in which the cable was laid. Nothing is ever simple on such a remote elevated site!

Another old mate! John/G4IRN was another early visitor to the GW8DX site and kindly donated a GXP 40/30 Yagi to the cause. Expect to hear more of John from here in the future.

Kim (G3WVG's XYL) during a summer visit to GW8DX.

The (almost) complete radio shack.

Progress being made with the big Versatower BP120XHD after refurbishment.

Pen Y Fan is 27 miles away from GW8DX, on a clear day, the view of it from the shack window is excellent.