During the week I activated North Berwick law GM/SS-280 and the pole with antenna came down in the wind. The feeder suffered some damage and the screen was open circuit. An evening spent repairing it proved successful as far as the DMM was concerned but was the FT818 output stage ok since I was transmitting when the antenna came down ? Cairnpapple hill seemed good place to test the repaired antenna and radio. There was a light breeze and some sunshine. One my colleagues joined me to see what SOTA was all about. I started with 2m and MM0GLM got me off the mark followed by MM3RCR and then s2s with 2M0PVP/P on GM/SS-171. I switched to 40m and did some more s2s. Next was GW4VPX/P on GM/MW-001, then 2E0BIA on G/SP-013 and GW4TJC/P on GW/NW-024. I went back to 2m and although I could hear 2E0ICJ/P on G/SB-010 unfortunately he couldn’t hear me answering. Meanwhile my colleague was taking aerial shots with his drone.
I think the repair was a success the FT818 swr display seemed happy enough with the antenna and worked ok on 40m. I tried answering some calls on 15m especially N9W but I think I wasn’t being heard in the crowd even though he was a strong signal in to me.
I am starting to worry about this SOTA business, I started last year doing a summit about every three weeks, now I’ve just done three in a week !
Is there a treatment programme for this addiction ?
Andy
MM7MOX
