Anyway… I can’t wait to tell you how awful G/SE-007 Crowborough was today.
Stopped at the “summit” on Beacon Road. Got out of van… waved my arms around (for no reason I can now think of), got back in the van and drove to Golf Course car park.
Got out again and headed into the small copse/wood behind the CP. After bashing about a bit I came upon a small rough clearing with some woodpiles. Just enough room to set up. It was off the footpath and overlooked by a rather grand looking house… I half expected the “what are you doing there?” question. But in the end we didn’t hear or see a soul.
Ran up the 2m SlimG on the 6m mast. Called on 2m FM for 5 mins to get absolutely no contacts.
Took down the SlimG and put up the 40m inverted vee dipole. At this point the rain started… bearing in mind it had been sunny all afternoon this was “a little tiresome”…
I self spotted and thanks to 10 chasers (including a great F S2S!) I was done in 5 mins. After 3 calls with no answer I went QRT and got the radio out of the rain.
Packed away… then the rain stopped and it’s been sunny ever since.
So a poor summit capped off with
15 mins of rain in an otherwise dry afternoon. Grrr
In the end I’ve put all this together in one simple report.
Two week trip “bagging” Summits in the southern part of the UK and one G/WB on the way home.
18 summits in all.
Operated a combination of 2m FM, 60m SSB, 40m SSB and 20m SSB. Not every band on every summit due mostly to time pressures.
2m FM mostly very quiet in the south of England.
60m SSB worked well most days and “cleaned up” a lot of the UK full licence chasers without too much of a Pile up.
40m SSB was mostly good for UK and European contacts. Some good reports out to Spain and places further afield. It also allowed me to work UK stations who can’t use 60m. Got a couple of big pile ups on a few hills. Biggest problem (as always) is holding a frequency and I found myself moving a few times and respottting - frustrating! I gave up altogether on Sunday when I got wiped out for a second time.
20m was mostly very quiet. A handful of contacts when used. But these did include one transatlantic S2S.
Mostly used the FT-270 into a Slim G on a 4m pole for 2m FM.
The SSB was done on an FT-857, running anything from 10w to 20w (mostly) and even up to 40w at times. All into a linked dipole resonant for the bands used.
None of the summits need much of a walk, I think about 30 minutes was the most. Many of them are drive up to the AZ. But a lot of driving in the busy south of England… during the fuel shortage.
It’s cleared up my remaining Summits south of Bristol and I’ve only got a handful left South of Manchester in GW and G.
Great to speak with so many people.
Highlights included:
Working my good friend @GW4VPX from almost all of them, together with many other regular chasers, who I dare not list in case I forget someone.
Meeting a couple with the same fairly rare van on a Caravan Club site. We’d met them before in Bala a couple of years ago. What the odds eh? Lottery ticket tonight…
Absolutely no problem at all with you pointing that out! Genuine thanks for the correction, which I will sort out now! It was logged correctly on the day.
Hello Gerald, thanks for your activation’s report with great photos. Glad you had a successful series of activation’s. The 2 photos that stand out I think are of you and your xyl (name?); and the size of that bull.
Highland cattle look fierce but are generally very placid and they aren’t very big either. A big bull might only be 1.2m (48") at the shoulder. A product of natural selection, bigger ones get blown off the hills.
It was a real pleasure to speak to you on 40m SSB on several summits Gerald. I could sometimes copy you on 60m, but the band is extremely noisy at my QTH, even though my antenna is just a 40m dipole. Thankfully conditions inter-G were quite reasonable on 40m.
It wasn’t all “work”… we has a couple of days off during the trip and enjoyed the sights of Salisbury and parts of the Isle of Wight… but I’m getting off topic
