Andy, it was amazing that we managed to QSO at all considering the big lumps of rocks probably in the way. I’m at about 80m ASL down in the valley by the river Wenning, Ingleborough G/NP-005 and Whernside G/NP-004 tower above me locally by over 600m. I’m not surprised that MM7MOX had a stronger signal. One thing that surprised me most of all was that I heard snippets from MM7MOX!
My FT-817 very rarely gets turned on, it’s even rarer that it goes out on a hill. The FT-817 was the very first HF set I ever bought, indeed, the only ‘commercial’ HF set I’ve ever bought. I don’t think I’d ever sell my FT-817, it is a key item in my amateur radio history. The serial number on my FT-817 dates from February 2001 - so I guess it’s officially 25 years old now. Crazy!
My Palm Pico paddles are my ‘go to’ for activating but if I use my FT-817, I tend to use my Palm Mini paddles.
Will be interesting to see if the FTX1F achieves anywhere like the popularity of the FT-817.
Got an s2s in to the lakes when Tim @G5OLD came booming through as I hooked up my 2m flowerpot to the ft818. Only a couple of other qso’s on 2m and then some HF. 40m was rammed and I gave up pretty quickly. 15m was more rewarding with a load of qso’s to Europe and a couple across the Atlantic as well.
we had friends round tonight and I’d mentioned I had a telescope, buried in the garage admittedly. I dug it out and have it a dust off earlier and stared at the rising moon for a bit. By the time they got here it had clouded over. I guess with the pending moon mission there should be more interest really.
Follow by clear skies and and an awesome sunset on Blencathra G/LD-008. What a great view of all the key summits of the lakes from this peak. Top peak, I rate it !
Skiddaw provided a couple of milestones today - I’ve been in the lakes three or four times while @M0MZB was camping on Sealletan , but I’ve never been able to work him, usually blocked by a summit. But today was that day!
And Skiddaw was my penultimate >3000 foot peak in the UK!
I tried to get you on 40m when I saw your spot in PoLo but I think I was too late. Sounded like a net was going on (not in English, IIRC it was Italian or Spanish). Hung about for a bit to see if you came up but alas I think you had made tracks. Next time!
40m on the ATAS worked well enough. Got M9IOC first try. Surprisingly 20m was working fairly decent too, just a lack of activities to chase on a screwdriver.
59 <> 59 SSB to the Azores, a cheeky 45 SSB down to Sicily, also Germany SSB. Dug out the green Pico and could hear USA stations (tried to get KI7QCF but the pileup was off the scale). Called CQ for a couple of minutes and got a nice QSO to Bari. I’m not skilled enough for a ragchew on CW so kindly sent my thanks for the QSO and at that point had to go QRT.
So the ATAS seems to work well, day and night (for me at least). I did notice some HI-SWR retuning on 40m but I think that was due to the coax coming loose as its only a makeshift install.
One other point to note. When I was calling CQ on CW I noticed when I used my Pico it was making the lights on the buttons around the gearshifter dimly light up in sync yet the car was fully switched off. Bizarre!
Oh and @M5TEA a ZL station appeared in PoLo just before I went QRT. I tried but nothing heard. Next time!
