Another last minute decision to take a trek up winter hill on a lovely warm day, breezy but warm. After leaving the car it was easy to know which direction to go in, big tower gave it away, but there is also a convenient road, so off i went. I didn’t follow the road all the way that would be daft given that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line and a well worn path pointed this out. Now we I arrived at the summit it was rather windier than I had anticipated so I had to decide on a sheltered spot and one of the large anchor points for the main mast was more that an adequate solution with the added advantage of a fence to tie the fishing pole to.
Now I had heard that paging interference could be a problem up here so was hoping i would be able to activate. However 25 contacts later proved there was enough station powerful enough to make this successful. One or two station from the opposite direction of the hill from where i was where having difficulty get through. Thanks to Mike G4BLH for spotting me and persevering with the contact, you where one of those where all the mast where directly between us, 59 when no paging but 38 when there was, I copied all your details though.
The other problem of course was rather strong winds and the gusts would bend my fishing pole and therefore my antenna almost horizontal, and I had to make frequent adjustments.
Now if anybody out there knows of a cheap filter I can make to filter out the paging frequencies please let me know, someone has suggested a coax notch filter but other evidence states it would be no use, any ideas???
Now 70cm never fails to underwhelm me but thank you to the last 2 contacts (the only 2 on 70cm).
73
Thank you to all the chasers
Chris, 2R0CRZ