South east tour

Hi all,

On saturday 9th may Lieven my friend (ON4CVL) and myself hope to activate 4 SE summits in one day.

These being:

G/SE-014 Cliffe Hill
G/SE-010 Firle Beacon
G/SE-011 Wilmington Hill
G/SE-006 Ditchling Beacon

This will of course depend on the weather.

Callsigns used will be: M6ONL/P (op: ON3WAB, Peter) and M/ON4CVL/P (op:Lieven) on the usual Sota frequencies in CW-SSB and hopefully in PSK.

Am I too optimistic if I say we can do these 4 summits in one day starting at around 10am and have to stop at around 6 o’clock to pick up the XYL’s in Brighton who will be exhausted from shopping.

73,

Peter, ON3WAB

In reply to ON3WAB:

Veel succes Peter en hopelijk tot werkens.

73
Luc ON6DSL

In reply to ON3WAB:

G/SE-011 Wilmington Hill and G/SE-006 Ditchling Beacon are the only two English summits I have not worked so if I can make it I will be over the moon to work you on these summits. Best chances for me being on 80m SSB.

As chance would have it the choice of date puts me right between two 12 hour night shifts, so I will have to make arrangements to be dragged out of bed at the times you appear. Apologies in advance if I sound a bit dazed and confused but I will be half asleep.

I hope the XYL’s don’t spend too much and get plenty of bargains.

Enjoy the trip.
73 Steve GW7AAV

Hi Steve,

We’ll probably start from west to east. So first of all Ditchling Beacon and ending with Wilmington Hill. We hope to succeed in our goal to activate all 4 in one day and still give enough people the chance to work us, not just the 4 required.

You’ll be forgiven if you sound a little “rough” hihi.

80m SSB will be no problem.

73

Peter

In reply to ON3WAB:

In that case, I look forward to seeing your estimated arrival time for Ditchling Beacon. If you are early enough I will stop up, if you are later I will set my alarm or get Helen to drag me from the pit when you appear. I should be up and getting ready for work by the time you get to Wilmington Hill so it might just work.

Best of luck with the activations and the British weather ;0)

Best regards Steve GW7AAV

Arrival in Dover is estimated around 7.15 BST. Then To Brighton on the A259-A27 along the south coast. Dropping off the wives and directly heading for Ditchling Beacon.

My guess is on air at 10.30-11am at the very latest?

Cliffe Hill might take a little longer as this hill is in TQ40. A WAB area that is popular in 2009 because of the nr 40 in it. This referring to 40th anniversary of WAB this year. So a QSY to WAB-net on 3760 is a must.

80m: 3.666 ssb
40m: 7.032 cw and 7.118 ssb and 7.040 in case of PSK.

PSK depends on tests we will do on monday 4 th may on ON/ON-022 (Hotond). If that goes well, we’ll take the PSK gear with us to England.

If the weather is too bad for /p, we will activate the WAB areas TQ40 and TV49-59-69 but then /m.

Peter

When do you have to leave for your work on saturday Steve?

Peter

In reply to ON3WAB:

6pm local time which is 17:00 GMT.

Steve

ok, I’ll take that into account. But we should have done Wilmington by then I suppose.

Now if you could order some decent weather … :o)

Peter

Just a reminder that everything is still on for tomorrow.

Weather looks promising: no rain, no strong winds expected. Temp 12°c.

Cu there !!

Peter

In reply to ON3WAB:

It was great to tick off another summit yesterday, thanks to Lieven M/OL4CVL/P for G/SE-011 Wilmington Hill. I got up out of bed and was listening for the G/SE-006 Ditchling Beacon activation on 7.118 and 3.666 mHz from 0900-1000 UTC but could only hear the odd chaser calling, so I gave up and went to bed. Helen woke me at just before 1300 UTC to say she thought Lieven was calling on SE-011 and I was back in bed five minutes later having worked the summit very easily. My state of mind was not at all what it might have been having just done a 12 hour night shift and I had to ask Lieven to repeat his callsign, it just was not registering with my tired brain.

Later when I got up to go to work I was surprised to see no further spots for either of the other two summits. I listened from 1500 UTC on 80 & 40m until I left for work but heard nothing. Did the British weather take its toll or did no chasers find you I wonder?

My brain was tired yesterday and must have been in a similar state when I told you I needed G/SE-006 Ditchling Beacon earlier in the thread, it is actually G/SE-007 Crowborough I need for my last English summit. Therefore missing G/SE-006 was not as much of a disaster as I initially thought.

Having had a disturbed sleep yesterday I was doing my best zombie impression at work last night but it was worth it to get one step closer to my target, thanks guys.

Best regards and many thanks Steve GW7AAV

PS I hope to be out of bed in time to get some chaser points around lunch time today, so if everyone can keep the activators talking until I get there it would be appreciated. ;0)

What a wonderful day we had.

Up at 3.15 in the morning to catch the 6.45 ferry to Dover. Off to Brighton to drop off the XYL’s and we arrived at Dichtling with the first QSO at 09.50 UTC. What a view and the weather was very pleasant with almost no wind.

We feld guilty leaving without having worked Steve GW7AAV. Little did we know he did not need this one anymore :o).

Off we went to Wilmington hill. We climbed this one the hard way(read steep way) but here the view was also worth it. The sun was still out in full force and little if no wind. The see was also closeby. Conditions however were far from ideal. On Ditchling I was able to work the whole WAB net in less than 10 minutes. Now G0NSL, G4LAB/M, …; could not hear me despite their S9 signals. On the other hand I worked G0EJV without problems. I switched to CW and had more succes on 40m with HB, DL, GW, G bagged really quickly.

We were asked questions from interested walkers. When we told where we were from I always got the same reply: " welcome to our country". 3 ladies ( in their 80’s ) passed and I overheard one explaining to her friend how the antenne worked !!

Quote of the day from 1 walker when he looked at the extractable fishing rod: " Caught many sheep today? " :o).

Lieven M/ON4CVL/P also qualified both summits with the second station and finally was called by Steve AAV for his last but one english summit.

We enjoyed ourselves so much that we lost track of time and had no time left for other summits, sorry.

So back to Brighton pick up 2 satisfied ladies and were home at 1 o’clock in the morning.

Took the scenic route from Dover via the coast but returned via the motorway north to Crawly and then over Maidstone to Dover. A total of 500 miles driven in over 10 hours.

Next time we will probably take it easier and spend a weekend in the area.

Thanks for having us. We enjoyed ourselves very much !!

QSL’s will be sent through the bureau.

73, de Peter, not Stuart (M6ONL/P) and Lieven (M/ON4CVL/P)