Battery: #2
Activation #15
Date: 01/07/21
Summit: G/SP-006 White Hill
Bands: 30m
Finish 8.45V
Rig: Home brew RockMite 30
Ant: Inv. Vee dipole at 6m above ground
QSOs: 4
DXCC - 4
F, HB9,OH,SM
Cumulative QSOs:101
Cumulative DXCC: 22
9A,CT,EA,F,DL,G,GI,GM,GW,HB9,I,K,LA,OE,OH,OK,OM,OZ,PA,SM,SP,YL
I’ve been itching to try my PP3 powered rigs again for quite a while. I saw the solar numbers this morning and thought I’d try an activation.
White Hill is quite close to my QTH, although I’m spoilt for choice in terms of number of local hills, the majority of them take quite a while to get the summit, whether that be because of a long walk or a long drive to get to the start. I figured I could just squeeze in an activation if I juggled a few jobs.
I measured my ageing PP3 battery before I set off and the voltage was at 8.61V.
I put my wellies on for White Hill, as despite the sunny days we’ve had, the summit tends to he boggy. It would have been possible to get away with regular hiking boots on this occasion but the ground was still very soft. You don’t know until you know!
The walk took around 45 minutes, I made good progress today due to the decent ground conditions.
I used my usual Trigger’s Broom edition SOTAbeams Bandhopper 3 dipole, which went up easily in the still air. I haven’t even turned my rig on since my last outing, which was a long time ago! My home brew RockMite has been very reliable over the years, this rig will soon be approaching 10 years old I think!
After switching the rig on, I was pleased to find the frequency (crystal control) sounding quite clear, although the audio sounded how I can only describe as ‘odd’. Anyway, I called CQ and after not very long I was replied to by Bruno @HB9CBR /P , who was activating HB/VD-037. I wish Bruno could have seen the smile on my face! Further CQs brought F4WBN, SA4BLM and finally OH3GZ. I’ve already had the activator points for G/SP-006 this year, but I was pleased to ‘qualify’ once again with my 4 QSOs.
After a bit of thought, I put together a theory that it was my earphones at fault causing the odd audio. I had two pairs of earphones with me and both didn’t sound good, although the Koss Plug ones were louder. I switched on to low impedance earphones to get higher volume from my MTR rigs, I think that the RockMite would be better with higher impedance earphones (eg 32 ohms), it would probably help with current consumption too.
It was nice to rack up over 100 QSOs on my battery
73, Colin