I only had the afternoon to play with, so headed for Ladylea which is a 35m drive from home. I was last up it in May 22. Weather was nice and sunny for a change and the strong breeze on the summit was warm, so it was mostly a tee-shirt job. With the sun busy flaring and chucking CMEs our way, the bands are a bit of a lottery at the moment, but I wanted to do a field test of my new 2el 10m tent-pole yagi.
Activation:
KX3, 10m yagi, Sotabeams linked dipole 20/40m, 2m slim jim and Quansheng, al 6m telescopic pole, Spiderbeam 7m pole. QRV 1350-1630 UTC.
I put the slim jim up first and tried for some local 2m contacts. The Deeside crew either couldn’t hear me or were busy elsewhere, but I got one local - GM0APN in Oldmeldrum. A QSY and CQ on 145.5 then brought the surprise of the day - a S2S with Andy, MM7MOX/P on NS-091, 84 miles North of me.
10m was pretty quiet, so I thought at first the yagi test was going to be a dud, but a spot was rewarded with calls from DJ2MX and EC8ADS, so the band was open and to EU as well for a change. More CQs brought silence though, so I dropped to 40m which produced just 6 chasers, including EA2DT.
20m seemed in poor shape - I got a quick S2S with EA2EXN with a lot of QSB and a spot brought just 2 chasers - DL8DXL and DL2HWI
Another 10m spot and EA2EXN called me but nobody else, so I had a look around the band. YB0AR, YE4FDB and JY5JA were very strong but working large EU pile-ups and I could hear quite a few of the EU stations calling. I worked 9A9RR 59 both ways, then another spot brought a call from Chris F4WBN who blew my headphones off -over 59+20. No other callers though, so more band scanning. Found TR8CA working split, and I got him at the second try with a 59/57 exchange - happy with that! I tried an unspotted CQ and was rewarded with a call from SP4SV, but nobody else, so I called it a day at 1730 local and was back at the car in 45m.
Overall, not a bad test of the yagi, which behaved itself in the wind. At home, it seems to be 1-2 S points better on receive than my moxon, with a better F/B, although band conditions (and lousy weather) lately have stymied A/B transmit tests between them - band either shut or just a few signals with a lot of QSB. Anyway, I intend to persevere with it.
