G/WB-004, Titterstone Clee Hill activation 01/09/2

Fantastic weather today for activating. I managed 4 QSO’s despite much interference, which I am told is a combination of using a 2m vertical dipole and the summit radar station. Apologies to any chasers who were not able to contact me. I hope to be on The Wrekin and Brown Clee Hill soon.

Alastair Hopkins
2E0SCZ

In reply to 2E0SCZ:

Hi Alastair…Nice to catch you on 004 today, especially as we don’t hear too many activations from that part of the country.

Glad you got your 4…I realised that you were struggling with noise levels etc but at least you qualified the summit…Hopefully the next one will be better for you.

ATB, Neil.

In reply to 2E0SCZ:

despite much interference, which I am told is a combination of using a 2m >vertical dipole and the summit radar station

I think you’ll find it’s the 5 channels of 16GW erp each on 24cms that does the damage more so than the antenna polarization. That’s 80GW erp for those who count slow! :slight_smile: Enough to upset most electronic devices.

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to 2E0SCZ:
Very nice to work you on Titterstone today, despite living 4 miles away I have never chased that hill until today!!

Many thanks for the QSO, Interference wise I have never had an issue on 2m FM/SSB, 4m FM or 6 SSB! Might just be one of those days, the high pressure anticyclonic weather may have something to do with it!

Best 73

Matt 2E0XTL

In reply to 2E0SCZ:
Hi Alastair, sorry i missed you i was on SC-005 and SC-001 would of been great to make a summit-summit with you, but well done on getting the 4 qso’s. Im on Titterstone Clee Hill myself tomorrow not sure on time yet im doing May Hill G/WB-019 first at 0900UTC so will be after that, will see if i have same interference.

73 and hope to work you soon
Lee 2E0LMA

In reply to 2E0SCZ:

Alistair

Well done on getting the four on here I too had difficulty on this one back in November 2009 and my WX was the usual nightmare so glad you had better wx than us.

I must say I would rate this as my 2nd favourite WB to date as I felt great on Stiperstones last September!

6 WB done to date so still 17 to go hopefully next year will clear the rest of the list of uniques needed!!

Well done and will listen out for you from the two today but doubtful I will work you!?

73

Tony

In reply to MM0FMF:

I think you’ll find it’s the 5 channels of 16GW erp each on 24cms that
does the damage more so than the antenna polarization. That’s 80GW erp
for those who count slow! :slight_smile: Enough to upset most electronic devices.

Tsk, thats multiplying, not counting! :wink:

I wonder where you have found that out, Andy? From time to time I have had a casual google concerning the site but never came up with much. Its our closest SOTA summit and direct LoS to the home QTH, and despite it being a bit rough and ready, I really like the hill. I’d be interested to know more about the installation…

As regards upseting most electronic devices, I can remember being up the many years ago with Geoff 2E0BTR when numeric pagers still had a place in the world. The unit in question was on 153MHz IIRC and would start going off as though it were receiving a message when we approached the two “roundey-roundey-radars”.

73,
Dave F/M0MYA/P

In reply to M0MYA:

I asked a bloke who was into ATV in a big way and was ex-BBC engineering. He got the info from a chum who worked on ATC radar. I think I have PRF and other specs somewhere. The antennas look up at least 5degs which minimises the RF at ground level. There’ll be some scatter and the like as the antennas are not perfect. So if you assume the local signal is 90dB (a lot of attenuation) down there’s still 80W of 24cms flying about with very fast rise times. The average power is not much though. The pulses are very short and not very often and there is a lot of antenna gain. The rise time is the big cause of interference after RF swamping.

IIRC, the 5 different frequencies are all chirped differently which is part of the ground clutter elimination. i.e. anything which is not moving in space or frequency must be stationary and is probably not a plane. This is one of the problems that windfarms create. All the sails are unsynchronised so any returned RF on all 5 channels will be constantly changing and so harder to remove.

It’s all becoming a bit redundant with the mode-s transponders planes now carrying though.

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to MM0FMF:

Hi all,

The smaller radar is one of ours, weather radar, operates on 5.6gigs, 123 watts to dish, rotates once every 60 seconds or so, 3 scan elevations in sequence no more than a few degrees in elevation. I along with Iain M3wjz look after one at Hameldon hill G4BLH territory ( info for Mike not been there yet as per last week or so!)
I have used radio equipment with our radar and it doesnt seem to affect them its all the other pmr stuff thats about.

rgds Keith G0OXV who has been off this week but then got laid up with man flu hope to be out Sunday.