Just a quick note of explanation to anyone who may have missed me of late (probably no one but what the heck), especially those who in the past I would have spotted within 20 seconds of them calling on 5MHz (Hi Andy).
I have had to put the radio a little on the back burner since the end of last year to start a little business venture. We had paid our mortgage off and decided we should reinvest the money. We decided we would go into property and the best way forward was to get a holiday home to let. That way we could get some enjoyment out of it even if we did not make a massive fortune.
After the Llandudno radio rally Helen and I went window shopping in the town and spotted the perfect holiday home for a SOTA addict like me, a house on the Great Orme GW/NW-070 and within a couple of days began the process of buying it. That house is now up and running with Hoeseasons, it is called Llamedos (don’t read it backwards if easily offended). You can see the house on Facebook, just search Llamedos.
The process of getting the property ready to rent meant Helen and I spending every spare minute down at Llandudno and our overspending on the project has resulted with me working every hour of overtime I could to revive the bank account (I don’t normal bother with overtime if I can get away with it). Hence me being conspicuous by my absence. A good indication of how busy I have been has been that I still haven’t activated North Wales 70 this year, despite that fact that it is no more than a ten minute walk from Llamedos.
Radio is not the only thing that has been neglected. When I entered my garden six weeks ago it was only the second time this year I had been out there. My lawn has since been strimmed and cut(twice) but everything is way overgrown. While trying to tidy up the garden I found one of my my neighbours had replaced the fence and in doing so severed several runs of coax, including the one to the 60m dipole. I have an iffy connection to my 10m antenna, my 6m m antenna has gone off tune, I have water ingress to a couple of run of coax and my 2m cross Yagi has lost a couple of elements. I also have an untraceable fault on my 2m/70cm/23cm collinear that was driving me nuts.
Our trip to Scotland (Isle of Skye) was to have seen us back activating, but Helen sprained her ankle a week or so before we went. I set up an antenna at the place in Scotland and found I had forgot all but an 8ft length of coax, due to ‘borrowing’ it from our rucksacks for Raynet.
I can’t see me getting the station properly sorted for a while yet, as we are just buying another place to let out, but I just wanted to say that I haven’t fallen out with SOTA and Helen and I will be back both activating and chasing as soon as things settle down.
We have managed a couple of relaxed weekends on the Great Orme recently and I hope to at the very least get in an activation in my own summit before the year is out. I must say I am missing the buzz of the chase and the attention I get being on the end of a pile up and I hope that feeling does not fade while I am doing other things.
73 Steve GW7AAV (call@gmail.com)
