Just for a change, today, I thought Iâd take the 55 mile drive to G/CE-004 Bardon Hill. An easy summit, if youâre not loaded up with a shed load of antennas, radios and batteries, like I was.
Anyhow, the WX was excellent, sunshine and a very light breeze. Therefore, getting the A-99 up to 15 feet and bungeed to the fence, was a piece of cake. My first port of call was 10m FM and it wasnât easy, nevertheless, the requisite four calls were completed to qualify the summit.
It was then onto 10m ssb, were a run of 10 calls were logged including Rich N4EX, Peter ZD7FT on St. Helena, Hector CX2DA in Uruguay and Serge EK4JJ from Armenia.
Time to look at the 20m band. As soon as my spot had appeared, the chasers were onto me very quickly, with calls coming from EU and North America and in no time at all, about 38 contacts were in the log.
The main reason for my visit to Bardon Hill, is this summits excellent take-off, giving me good working conditions to check out the 15m band. My self spot on brought an immediate response from all over the shop and this kept me busy for some time, with a run of 53 contacts. It was at this point, I called it a day.
27 calls from North America, seven of them Canada.
Other noteable DXâŠ
Wes ZS1VV from South Africa
Bob V26BZR Antigua and Barbuda
Danny ZF1DM Cayman Islands
Once again, it was a story of QSB, however, it was worth the hard work.
The 15m band, seems to be providing better DX than 20m at the moment. The 10m band is still not great, however, some DX was worked on it today. If youâre planning an activation, the only thing I can suggest is to take a bag full of antennas, as the bands are a bit of a lucky dip!
Many thanks to all the Chasers, especially North America, for coping with the difficult QSB conditions. 104 Contacts logged,
73 Mike
2E0YYY