My go-to summit was beckoning on Saturday, and thankfully the weather men over-estimated the precipitation. The wind, however, was spot-on and ensured a comical tarpaulin deployment. Will I ever become proficient at deployment?
Today I took the KX3, a LifePo4 4.2AH battery, Sotabeams Quadbander (with 60m not 30m) and SOTABeams 10m compact travel pole. The pole once again proved a good match against the strong, gusty wind. The tarp stopped the windchill.
20m was working nicely with my 10-15 watts. Headphones necessary as the KX3 speaker is no match for wind noise. No rain here but it was reassuring to have the tarp given downpours to the East.
I very much enjoyed my six S2S contacts. Leszek @SQ9MDF was an especially nice contact on 60m, and not easy to complete.
| Time | Callsign | STX | SRX | Freq | SOTA Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1200 | sp9ma/p | 55 | 59 | 14.315 | sp/bz-002 |
| 1205 | sp9bij/p | 41 | 55 | 14.315 | sp/bz-013 |
| 1206 | hb9eaj/p | 43 | 58 | 14.315 | hb/zh-014 |
| 1214 | ha2pp/p | 54 | 56 | 14.315 | ha/kd-010 |
| 1243 | sq9mdf/p | 41 | 41 | 5.391 | sp/bz-044 |
| 1301 | ok/om1ws/p | 55 | 55 | 14.272 | ok/zl-013 |
The air clarity made views spectacular. I regretted not taking my Panasonic TZ-70 with 40x zoom. Heasham Power Station and Blackpool Tower were very clear. My £99 Android phone has no zoom, but coped well otherwise.
Westerly view towards Old Man of Coniston
@G8CPZ Andy had let me know that Exercise Blue Ham was being run by instructors on 60m.
On the dates above the Royal Air Force Air Cadets (RAFAC) will be organising and running a military style National Radio Exercise named ‘ EXERCISE BLUE HAM ’ other users may be the Army Cadet Force (ACF), Sea Cadet Corps (SSC) or Combined Cadet Force (CCF) Staff and some Cadets. To make this successful we would like to invite all Full Licenced Amateur Radio Operators to take part and make contact with our ‘Special Edition Callsigns’ during the weekend.
It was great to get MRE82 in the log, and I broke through the formalities to have a nice chat. I didn’t hear many stations on.
The other highlight was an unexpected chase from @AC1Z Bob in New Hampshire who did a great job picking up my 10 watts on 20m.
Trees indicating the prevailing wind direction is definitely Westerly!
The stay at home contest was buzzing on 20m and would have proved fun to participate in (when I worked out the serial was in fact operator age) but I had run out of time. Thank you to all chasers and activators for my contacts today.
More photos here.
| Time | Callsign | Band | Mode | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11:55 | OK1VEI/P | 14MHz | SSB | N: Pavel WWFF: OKFF2272 |
| 11:56 | SP5ZIM/P | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 11:58 | EA2DT | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 11:59 | HB9CZR | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:00 | SP9MA/P | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:01 | DL8DXL | 14MHz | SSB | N: Fred |
| 12:02 | EA1DHB | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:02 | IN3ADF/P | 14MHz | SSB | N:Mario |
| 12:03 | IU1KGS | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:05 | SP9BIJ/P | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:06 | HB9EAJ/P | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:08 | DJ5AV | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:09 | AC1Z | 14MHz | SSB | QTH: New Hampshire |
| 12:09 | OH3GZ | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:10 | G4IPB | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:11 | IU1KGS | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:11 | SV1RVJ | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:14 | HA2PP/P | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 12:16 | DG4NAT | 14MHz | SSB | N: Thomas TRX: TS570 PWR: 100 ANT: 10 elem ant |
| 12:25 | G0RQL | 7MHz | SSB | |
| 12:28 | DL2DXA | 7MHz | SSB | |
| 12:40 | G0FEX | 5MHz | SSB | TRX: FT-817 PWR: 5 |
| 12:43 | SQ9MDF/P | 5MHz | SSB | |
| 12:44 | MW0OFA | 5MHz | SSB | N: Frank QTH: Cardigan |
| 12:52 | MRE82 | 5MHz | SSB | MHL: IO94ta PWR: 30 TRX: Clansman PRC320 ANT: Dipole ANTD: East/West WX: Showers |
| 13:01 | OK/OM1WS/P | 14MHz | SSB | |
| 13:12 | 2E0ESY | 3.5MHz | SSB | N: Mike QTH: Norfolk |
| 13:13 | ON4CB | 3.5MHz | SSB | |
| 13:14 | GW4VPX | 3.5MHz | SSB | N: Allan |
| 13:31 | RW1F | 14MHz | SSB | CON: S@H STX: 51 SRX: 62 |
| 13:52 | 2E0MOW | 144MHz | FM | |
| 14:05 | G6LKB | 144MHz | FM | |
| 14:07 | G8CPZ | 144MHz | FM | PWR: 5 |
