Two SOTAs and FMACs this week

Hello everyone

We plan two activations to coincide with the FMACs this week:

Tuesday 14th, 18:00, Nine Barrow Down, G/SC-013. I will be taking part in the 70cm FMAC. Simon G4TJC will be on 2m FM.

Thursday 16th, 18:00, Win Green, G/SC-008, this time for the 4m FMAC. Again, Simon will be on 2m FM. I’m hoping to improve on the three QSOs I managed last year!! (not a SOTA but not far away)

I will be operating as 2E0VMD/P as that’s the callsign I began the contests with at the start of the year. A long way from my usual IO93 square, all calls will be very much appreciated! :grinning:

73
Helen
M0TMD

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Just to add that as both summits will, hopefully, be within range of the new 2m repeater at Blandford Camp, GB7CM, I should be able to access Wires-X and therefore SOTA-Link. So I’ll set up on 2m and will of course be looking for simplex contacts.

I keep bringing my handheld down here when work calls me down, and rarely get any contacts. This week I didn’t bother :frowning:️ The moral - never give up :smirk:
Enjoy the activation

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Ah well. We know how quiet it can be here, hence the SOTA/WAB/FMAC alerting! 4m on Thursday is going to be very interesting.

I shall endeavour to activate either G/SP-013 Gun or G/SP-015 Cloud for the 70 Mhz contest, most likely arriving in time for the last half of the FM contest and continuing into the SSB section for a while.
Whichever I don’t activate on Thursday will be my target for Tuesday 23rd and the 23cm UKAC
Sorry, no 70cm yet.

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Just seen your spot Simon. Sorry I can’t respond (would have been a complete for me too). Hope you get your 4. I’m dining just across Poole harbour from you but radio-less :frowning:

Hi Andy.
I struggled a bit on 2m but finished with a couple to spare and even one simplex Fusion contact.

GB7CM wasn’t playing but I think I was making it into SOTA-Link through a gateway in Poole. Actually I had more luck with America Link with a nice chat whilst descending.

Helen beat my tally, so I guess people were out on 70cm instead of 2m :slightly_smiling_face:

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I managed nine contacts after my combination of alerts so I’m quite pleased with that, all things considered. Four of them were other contesters and two were WAB friends. Made decent distances to Dartmouth and up to Basingstoke, so once again it seems to be a reflection of activity levels rather than conditions. A lovely evening for SOTA (and WAB and a contest :wink:). Looking forward to 4m fm on Thursday from Win Green.

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Lovely evening for Win Green and the 4m FMAC. Five contacts was two more than the same time last year (not SOTA but nearby), so grateful for that! Extra happy with a summit to summit with G4VFL/P on G/WB-021. :grinning:

73 Helen M0TMD (2E0VMD/P)

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Above Helen shows a view of our 4-m emergency antenna, constructed with chocolate blocks and twin-and-earth wires.This was made out of necessity as I had somehow failed to pack the Slim-JIM for our journey south from Wales. We don’t actually know if it was resonant, not having anything to measure reflected power with us for that band. However, it seems it works, and shows that it’s quite easy to knock up something reasonably effective when you have to. So if you have for example an IC7300 or FT847 with 4-m coverage in the shack but no antenna for it, take yourself to M0UKD’s ground plane calculator and have a play!

I also managed to forget the feeder for the 70-cm Super J-Pole Helen has been developing, so had to concoct something nasty from bits of UR43 and a collection of adaptors in place of a nice length of Ultraflex 7 with N-type plugs!

Anyway, all this, with a few more pictures in our write-up:

Also we have a write-up of activations from the week before:

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