If there are any followers of my mini Expedition in G/SC region they may have noticed that this instalment comes 4 weeks after Day 5. This is an expedition in stages.
I have 4 G/SC summits left to activate and today my plan was to tackle 2 of them.
Dundry Down, G/SC-010, is virtually a drive on summit. I’m fairly sure the car park is within the activation zone but this is SOTA not POTA so in the true SOTA spirit I walked a little way on the path towards the summit.
I wasn’t feeling 100% today so I decided to use SSB only and not tax my tired brain with CW but conditions were not great for this mode. A glance at Sotawatch showed the majority of activators were using CW which suggested others were also struggling.
But 40m SSB brought in 5 QSOs with reasonable signal reports, best DX was probably Michael EI3GYB or Roger ON7ZM, I haven’t checked the distances so not sure which was the longest.
Operating position on G/SC-010
I drove through a heavy shower on the way to Beacon Batch, G/SC-003, the highest point in the Mendip Hills but it stopped soon after I arrived. From the car park a walk of about 25 minutes brought me to the summit, where I set up using the trig point. There are Bronze Age tumuli on the summit and the trig point seems to have been built on top of one!
The 6m carbon fibre pole was a bit lost in the hole in the trig point - I must bring some bits of plastic pipe next time.
40m SSB produced no replies but a change to 17m found Dinos, SV3IEG in Greece and a 44 signal report.
After trying HF for a bit longer without success I switched to 2m FM and got 5 more QSOs using an RH-770 whip. I would have had better results with my Slim Jim I think but I had left that at home.
Many thanks to all chasers, I was seriously thinking I might not qualify the second summit today but VHF came to the rescue. I will be sure to take VHF kit when I activate the last 2 G/SC summits, which will happen when the weather improves.