You know the feeling… you walk up the hill. Set up the mast, the dipole, the radio, get the log book out and switch on. Call CQ on 40M SSB a few times and get a nice fat pile up.
Not today.
On the first hill 40M was horrible, after half an hour I managed to rustle up 4 contacts, all outside the UK. People called me then disappeared. Supremely frustrating! I tried 20M for 10 minutes and didn’t get a thing.
I moved to 2M and got 4 more contacts on FM. Over an hour for 8 contacts.
On the second hill 40M was still not in great shape, but now there was a bigger problem… CQ Contest… I could not find a sliver of space to get myself established. I once thought I was off and self spotted, only to be completely flattened by another station before I could work anyone.
Back to 2M, after 40 minutes I finally managed to get 5 contacts. 3 on FM and 2 on SSB.
It was very frustrating, but, I suppose if it was all easy then the hobby wouldn’t have any attraction.
Won’t take long to type the log up tonight!