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)