Great Shunner Fell was my first activation - well sort of but as I only managed 3 contacts I was so dejected that I didn’t submit the log. On that occasion I think I moaned about not getting any contacts on 2m. Since then I have never not qualified a summit - but I have got the hang of spotting.
Knowing what HF has been like for the last couple of days I started on 2m, and the band seemed to be in a time warp, so much so that it was quite hard to find an empty frequency. I presume conditions were good but for 11AM on a Tuesday morning I was very impressed and easily qualified the summit.
The same could not be said about my attempts on HF, indeed I was wondering if I had an antenna fault as all that there seemed to be across 40m and 20m was noise with the odd QRO station emerging from the noise, occasionally. A couple of CQ calls later, and an attempt to get a S2S ended with failure. Looking at Solar Ham I notice that the Kp index is 5 which I think is a minor geomagnetic storm explaining my relative failure on HF.
(VHF equipment FT-270 into a Jpole at about 5m. HF Equipment a KX2 (Yes I’m keeping it) into a 40m EFHW)
I’m wondering if I should have brought out the FT-817 and tried 2m SSB - although my 5 ele hb beam isn’t really very good (mechanically) and tends to change polarisation mid activation…
Once again thanks to the chasers, apologies for my barking sidekick (Woody)
Cairn on the way down - Car Parked on the road near Thwaite
(Edit - Photo sorted)(Edit 2 - Why don’t I see the mistakes until the post is uploaded)
