Thank goodness for

60 meters :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Otherwise my activation of G/SE-004 tonight would have had to have been entered into the ‘activations you wish you could forget about’ thread…
In half an hour, I had 1 QSO in the log… 20m just about dead… 40m just about dead Only saved by 5 QSOs on 60m, where it sounded as if someone was playing with their new ‘Dyson S8-S9 Vacuum Cleaner’ (*)
Dodgy SWR with the ends of the link dipole actually about 2 inches off the ground :fearful: So, many thanks to those who dug me out of the noise!

RRT seemed to think I was between 3-5km away from Butser Hill, but if anyone needs confirmation I was there, I can scan in a copy of the £3 parking ticket!! THREE QUID!!! That was like, 50p a QSO… Just about!

Don
m0hcu

(*) Other Vacuum Cleaning devices are available…

(oh, just realised, 60m just about saved me on Leith Hill G/SE-002 on the 30th June (Although I also had 3 x 2m QSOs (and 1 x 20M one) there that would have quailfied it for me…)

1 Like

You were a good signal, Don, but I suspect that many of the regulars on sixty would not have expected it to be open at that time!

Brian

To catch the good conditions on 20m these days, you would need to do overnight activations! The band has been pretty useless during the hours of daylight, but for the past couple of weeks 20m has opened up to North America from about 2200 UTC and has been positively humming with enormous W and VE signals right through the night until 0300 UTC or later. S9 signals from all mainland N. American call areas. Plenty of South Americans too, to add a little variety to the mix.

73,
Walt (G3NYY)

Tried hard to hear you on 40 and 20 via the ground wave as I am only 9 miles line of sight from SE-004 but nothing heard. Unfortunately only my 817 is open banded and that was packed ready for my activations today. Had hoped you would have been monitoring 145.500 as I called you several times in that.

73 Glyn

oh, typical… That’ll teach me!
I did take the Beofeng handy, and left it in the car :frowning: Along with the Elk antenna.
I was going to give it a quick go with the coaxial colinear at the end (I normally “put it up the pole” along with the linked dipole, but didn’t this time :frowning: ) As time was getting on, I didn’t want to find out if they actually locked the car park at 20:00 like they claimed on the notice boards! Long walk back to the B&B otherwise!

Oh well maybe next time !!!

I always carry my VX-170 clipped to the rucksack strap as its waterproof. Rarely activate using the handie but have it tuned to 145.500 whenever I am out on the hills just in case I hear another activator calling CQ.

Were you over this way on business or holiday?

73 Glyn

I used to carry my handy like that too. but since I normally have the coax colinear attached at the same time (not recently though, obviously) This has been replaced with a 4M handy, very useful around G/WB as you can normally guarantee at least 4 QSOs on 4M.

Since I’ve just acquired a 4M transverter, that may get carried instead of the 4M handy, just as soon as I can check it out. Only for easy places though :wink:

Doing some work around the area, Farnborough way, odd days, so any ideas about summits to get to easily, would be useful… I may be able to fit a couple of Tuesday evenings in again in the next few weeks…

From Farnborough area the closest easy access summits are SE-003 Black Down, SE-002 Leith Hill and SE-005 Botley Hill. All of the have good car parking and short walks to the activation Zone. Go to www.g4cfs.co.uk and select SOTA blogs from list on right.

Will keep an eye out for activations as I need Black Down for a complete.

73 Glyn

I was at Black Down a few weeks ago, i think I QSY’d back to 40M but you still couldn’t hear me. I did Leith Hill as well. I’ll check out getting to Botley Hill, and perhaps Walbury Hill on the way back home if I can swing an early finish one day :slight_smile: