Early Outing

Looks like I’ll get the opportunity to squeeze in another summit before I head back South, so weather permitting I’ll go for an early activation of GM/WS-313 tomorrow morning - target time 0700z so hope not everyone will be having a Bank Holiday lie-in…

Usual MO, 5-ssb, 3.666-ssb then 7.118-ssb. Will definitely try 80m in the hope that it’s working for a change. Fingers crossed for better conditions than the last pair :-s

73 de Paul G4MD

Unfortunately the pocket handkerchief garden at our accommodation won’t allow me to put out the dipole, otherwise I would be on. I suspect packing the motors will also impose… Friday is travel day this time around. :frowning:

Enjoy the activation.

73, Gerald G4OIG

Hi Paul

I’ll be up and about and will keep an ear open for you on 80m - all the best

Martin M0JEA

Thanks Martin will be looking for you!

Looks like should have good phone coverage on the summit so hopefully will be able to self-spot

73 de Paul G4MD

Hi Gerald,

Sorry you can’t get on :frowning: Safe journey home!

73 de Paul G4MD

Ha! I had my eye on that one :slight_smile:

Good luck!

Best of luck Paul!

Noise levels will be the problem here (& with others I’m sure).

Don’t forget to pack your key just in case, calling on CW within your LSB passband on 3666 KHz will not be picked up by the RBN but may be heard by chasers who can’t quite read you on SSB.

I hope you are successful using only SSB but bear in mind that cross mode contacts are just as valid as any other :wink:

Good luck!

es vy best 73,

Mark G0VOF

Good to get you on 60m and 80m Paul.

Very very hard on 40m bit early for time of day but at least reached each other thanks again

karl

Thanks for the summit. Couldn’t hear you at all on sixty or forty but a good 57 on eighty ( Durham ) so the skip was right here!

Well that was more like it! Reasonable bag of contacts on 60, 80 and 40 though some were difficult. Many thanks to everyone who participated, particularly Don 'RQL who postponed exercising his canine charges to help me through the activation :smile:

Skip was long on 60m, first in the log was OZ1W, followed by PA7ZEE before the UK stations kicked in with Don down in Devon easily the strongest. 80m produced a good bunch of contacts from all over the UK, with very varied reports and many commenting on the high noise levels. 40m was a mixed bag with continental and UK stations in the log. QRM was a major problem, with a couple of QSY’s being required to dodge strong adjacent stations who opened up too close for comfort.

Sorry if I pipped you to the post Gerald, to be honest I’ve had my eye on this one for the last five years and am amazed it remained unactivated for so long! It just never seemed to fit in with plans before, too far south for far north expeditions and too far north for southerly expeditions :-s. Dropped a bit of a booboo really, didn’t notice until too late it would have combined with it’s unactivated neighbour GM/WS-321 to make a good day out with minimal additional driving.

Not a bad idea Mark - unfortunately don’t have a lightweight travel key, but have often been in the situation where I’ve been struggling to get a report across and thought I bet I’d make it in CW… (can manage bits of simple sending but brain quickly turns to mush in the face of trying to receive critical information :frowning: ) I’ll put one on my wish list! Fortunately 80m was behaving itself this morning :slight_smile:

Thanks again to everyone who forewent their Bank Holiday lie in to work me, and look forward to catching you all again next time.

73 de Paul G4MD

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Well Paul,

Didn’t realise that you had been on 60M. Don’t think I saw any spots? And it looks like the skip would have been too long for inter GM. So 80M would have been a possible but I have severe QRM all across 80M with a notch at 3.7 to 3.8 then continues on upwards, but tails off below 5MHz - phew! I don’t really use 80 from the home QTH, but once I have settled everything down in the new shack, I’ll have a wander to try and track the QRM down. Otherwise it’s out in the car /M.

73 till the next summit.

Jack(;>J

PS: great idea of Mark’s re the taking a key with you. Don’t worry if your struggling - just give us the report in dashes - ie 4 dashes R4 and 7 dashes S7. I’m sure I learnt to count in primary school (or maybe I missed that lesson :smile: )
PPS - Remember you can use the 817’s mic to send morse and more simply just dashes.
PPPS - (a lot of PP’s here almost like the bank’s compensation scheme!!) or switch to AM/FM cover mic and just key the ptt!

Paul spotted himself on 60m, That what caused me to get out of breath so early in the morning running upstairs to the shack!

Fri 06:35 GM4MD/P on GM/WS-313 5.3985 ssb
*Spot[G4MD]: qrv now (Posted by SMS)

Interestingly enough, I had a listen for Paul on Hack Green, which is not that much closer to where Paul was than me and he was inaudible on there, so it looks like I only just made it, skip-wise. So, yes, I think you’d have been struggling for inter-GM on 60.

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G0FEX
I was still under the duvet at that time.
Cheers Ken

I would have missed it too but for seeing the alert before bedtime.

Thanks, Paul.
73,
Rod

Hi Jack,

Very sorry you missed me. Unfortunately it was a last-minute opportunity so the advance publicity was limited…

Both 60m and 40m were very long, with no GM’s worked on either band. If we were going to make it it would have been on 80m, where I worked Ken and Christine in Edinburgh with very good received signals (though they were troubled with their local noise when copying me) and Geoff GM4WHA in Annan. Didn’t know about your noise problem on 80m - will try to take that into account for future activations.

Really must look at getting my CW up to speed. Can actually manage sending quite efficiently at 12 - 14 wpm and can copy random groups at similar speed without problem but as soon as I try to copy real-world information when it matters it all falls apart :frowning: Just needs more practice I suppose… I find it hard to believe that 33 years ago I could do it well enough to pass the GPO morse test…

Hope to catch you on the next expedition (though I’ve no idea at the moment when that will be…)

73 de Paul G4MD

Hi Ken, Rod

Apologies for the short notice and early hour - it really was one shoe-horned in unexpectedly! Will try to be better organised next time…

73 de Paul G4MD

Hi Karl

Very glad to have made it, thanks for your persistence :slight_smile:

Will be looking for you next time out

73 de Paul G4MD

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