I decided that I would enjoy the morning off with a little jaunt up to Wendover Woods. I parked in the car park near the café and walked along to the clearing nearest the “true summit” cairn. There has been a fair bit of tree felling so the forest around the clearing was definitely “thinner” today.
I set up the 88ft doublet (now repaired after the Black Down episode) and got cracking on 5.291 CW. I worked a nice run of stations and all signals were very good indeed. I wish we would use CW on 60m more. SSB is often too noisy for me at the home QTH.
A general apology should be made about my CW. I have a sore tendon in my forearm and my index finger and thumb kept cramping up after a while on CW. I moved the paddles to a different position so thankfully it was better later.
Anyway I then QSY’ed to 5.3895 SSB and worked a few more stations but with signals a little more up and down. I assume I was closer to the critical frequency and/or skip was longer.
A brief stop on 80 SSB brought in Frank G3RMD and Carolyn G6WRW but no more. Another stop on 80m CW again brought in Frank but then it was off to 40m CW on 7.033. I had a good run with a number of “boisterous” callers that slowed the rate a little.
I popped briefly back to 60m for a S2S with G8XDD before working just one station on 7.086 SSB. I then QSY’ed to 10.1185 CW for another nice run of stations. 30m worked well and included a Nordic contingent from SM and LA and others in OE, DL, 9A and SP.
I made a final call on 60m and then had a bit of a chat with Paul G0HNW on 5.4035 before I went QRT.
I made 40 QSO’s in total and had a very nice morning. Thanks to all callers and to Frank G3RMD and Les G3VQO for the spots.