M3EYP and myself were both feeling somewhat fragile on the morning of Sunday 26th September 2010, following the excesses of his 18th birthday pubcrawl the night before. “What’s the best way to cure a hangover dad?” he asked me, surprising me that three pints of Carling had even caused one. However, umpteen pints of bitter certainly had, so the two of us shot off up to Common Barn Farm, Rainow, for two huge platefuls of its superb full farmhouse breakfast.
After collecting the birthday cards Jimmy had left behind at the Nag’s Head and watching a live Premiership match on Sky back at home, the email came from Richard G3CWI suggesting a trip out to try for S2S with North America.
For some reason, we both fancied a walk on Shining Tor G/SP-004 rather than the more usual Gun G/SP-013 or The Cloud G/SP-015. At the top, we set up the MM20 groundplane vertical for 20m, and used my 817 and Palm Paddle with Richard’s amplifier to give us 40 watts or thereabouts.
Sean M0GIA joined us with son Daniel, and seemed to make a large number of QSOs on 2m FM. Richard did a run on 20m CW, including USA and Canada, and then I did likewise. Nice to work a variety of stations from Pickering to Pennsylvania, but alas no S2S. No spot for any US activation appeared before it was time for us to go home.
In my case, this was via the Weston Balti Raj to collect a traditional family Sunday dinner.
Tom M1EYP