I recently found the 40m dipole. I lost it a couple of years ago. Looked for it everywhere. Even started asking around my friends in case I’d lent it to someone who hadn’t bothered to return it, you know the type. I certainly do - I’m one of them - after all, I borrowed this antenna from Richard @G3CWI in about 2005 and still haven’t given it back. I think he thinks it’s mine now. So do I.
So for the past couple of years, whenever I’ve wanted to activate on 40m, I’ve used the Bandhopper 4 linked dipoled, and ended up diluting the activation with incursions of 20m, 30m and 80m. This morning on The Cloud G/SP-015, I decided to celebrate the return of the “lost sheep” with a properly dedicated single band 40m activation. Good fun it was too.
The rain threatened several times but apart from once, never managed to get started properly. On that one occasion that it did, I deployed my new bothy bag and sat in the warmth, dry and comfort.
Until I noticed that my backside was wet. It seemed that gravity had decided to join in with the rain, which had trickled along the ground underneath the edges of my bothy bag, and largely undetected by me. By the time I noticed anything, I was sat in the middle of a half-inch deep puddle…
Time for a sharp exit. But prior to that:
55 QSOs:
40m CW: 23 QSOs
40m FT4: 6 QSOs
40m FT8: 14 QSOs
40m SSB: 7 QSOs
2m FM: 5 QSOs
4 S2S:
OK2PDT/P on OK/OL-062
HB9DBM/P on HB/AG-012
S52AU/P on S5/KS-012
SQ6GIT/P on SP/BZ-020
4 SWL:
HB9BPH/P on HB/ZH-012
EA5HUS/P on EA5/VL-015
OE25PGM/P on OE/ST-546
CT7/EA4DOS/P on CT/MN-012
Interestingly, there was a lot of “012” in the references this morning! Made me half-wish I was on Easington Fell or Cadair Berwyn!
I transferred over to Gun G/SP-013 and waded up to the summit. A huge bank of heavy rain advanced towards me from the north, but then, miraculously, veered right and passed to the west of the hill! Just two QSOs on 2m FM with the handheld on this one.