Thursday 11th April 2019 - The Cloud G/SP-015
I afraid to say I suffered several more “preparation fails” for this one, but relieved to say I “got away” with all of them!
Fail one was just after picking up fish and chips for tea, for Jimmy, Liam and myself. The bag fell over in the car and 1.5 pots of curry sauce emptied themselves. Fortunately, this was all contained within a clean paper bag; it could have been much worse!
Fail two was when I pulled the SB6 out of the bag and saw that it was damaged - a wire had broken off an acrylic insulator. I’d broken this last month and forgotten completely about it. I cobbled together a makeshift repair, tying the end of the wire (driven element) around a small cable tie loop, then connecting that via a longer cable tie to the rest of the antenna. It all worked, the antenna performed well and the VSWR was good.
Fail three was when I went to turn on my Windows 10 tablet (for WSJT-X for the MGM activity contest 1800-1855z) - but discovered that it was already turned on! That meant that since I put it into my car two days ago, after recharging it, it had been switched on - doh! Anyway, I pleased to say it still had more than enough juice to last the contest period of 55 minutes.
In the 6m MGMAC, I operated exclusively on FT8 and made 16 QSOs into squares IO64, 70, 82, 83, 91, 93, 94 & JO02.
In the 6m UKAC, I operated exclusively on SSB and made 67 QSOs into squares IO64, 71, 74, 75, 80, 81, 82, 83, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94 & JO01.
The last half hour was hard work as it was bitterly cold up there.