Jimmy M3EYP and myself will be doing a talk and presentation about our Pennine Way walk of 2006. This will be held at the Macclesfield & District Radio Society next Monday (10th) March 2008, beginning 8pm. Admission is free, but there is a 50p charge for non-members in the bar afterwards. The club is based at the Pack Horse Bowling Club, Westminster Road, Macclesfield; more details at http://www.gx4mws.com
Our eleven SOTA activations along the route will be covered in the talk and presentation. This talk is expected to also run at other radio clubs in the North-West over the next few months, so there may be other opportunities to see it if you can’t make this one. Indeed, if anyone is linked with a club that may be interested in hosting this presentation - and/or my talk/presentation about SOTA itself, then both are available for bookings.
(I have a third talk about offshore pirate radio as well if any radio club is interested).
After the Powerpoint presentation and talk in the radio shack, there will be a Q+A session, together with several exhibits from our walk in the bar afterwards. The bar, BTW, serves the excellent ales from the Storm Brewing Company of Macclesfield - including the much loved “Bosley Cloud”.
Well I have to say it was an absolutely fantastic talk/presentation and everybody there agreed it was just the best radio club talk they had ever been to…
…now taking bookings to bring the Pennine Way (with a radio) talk or the SOTA talk (or the Offshore Pirate Radio talk) to YOUR radio club.
I drove down the M6 after work on Friday 2nd July 2010, listening to the Nadal-Murray Wimbledon semi-final on BBC Radio 5 Live. Sadly Murray was beaten rather convincingly despite playing well, and my disappointment was soon compounded by a very bad one hour traffic jam on the M6 Toll, for which I had just parted with a fiver for the privilege.
I noted some new stations on the car radio - 107.5 Switch Radio, 89.1 Big City Radio and 91.3 Raaj FM. Eventually, I did make it to the Premiere Classe Inn in Coventry to check-in and have a bite to eat while watching the first minutes of Ghana versus Uruguay in the World Cup quarter-final.
Then it was down to the Coventry ARS to deliver my Pennine Way 2006 presentation to a good sized audience. It was an enjoyable evening, and it tempted out one particular XYL of a club member. She told me she had no interest in radio, but was a keen walker!
The slide where Mike G4BLH is seen intercepting Jimmy and I at Blishmere Close (in-between Fountains Fell G/NP-017 and Pen-y-ghent G/NP-010) prompted comment from one of the members who orignally hailed from Lancashire and recognised Mike! (This was what I was trying to tell you in the over that was destroyed by QSB yesterday Mike!).
After a sleep back at the hotel, I rose early on Saturday 3rd July 2010, grabbed a continental breakfast in reception and hit the road. I followed the M69, and then the M1 to junction 22. Then it was a case of working my way around the roads on the Eastern outskirts of Coalville to find Vercor Close and the start point for Bardon Hill G/CE-004.
The walk up is not too taxing, and I was at the summit in about 20 minutes. The day was very nice, and the views excellent from the summit. On 30m CW, I worked 12 contacts, including S2S with Heinz OE5EEP/P on OE/OO-113. On 2m FM, I worked just one station before descending to the car.
Another new broadcast FM station was logged on the journey home - 107.8 Ikhlas FM in the Derby area.
I once got a Ferrari 512BB to the red-line in 5th gear on the M69 about a week after the motoroway opened and there was no traffic about. It wasn’t enough to get the “need for speed” on public roads out of my system. That came when I got caught (after slowing down) in my Alfa. If the slouch in the 911 would have pulled over then he’d have got caught not me!
Did you catch any broadcast FM Sporadic E this season Tom? I haven’t heard a peep this year.
