Saw your 2M spot, popped onto 40M CW briefly in case you were sat waiting with HF set-up ready to pounce But wasn’t on there for long (getting cold by that point). One day, one day…
Weather in SW was not as nice as ES! Overcast, and I was in the cloud on Waun Fach GW/SW-002.
Failed on 2M as having issues with my roll-up J-Pole and 705 combo. Thought it was a dodgy SMA-BNC adapter previously. But seems not to be the case. High SWR reading on the 705 is either because the antenna is bust. Or because it’s tuned for the USA 2M band and is just a bit high down at 144.and-a-little-bit and would probably be OK. Some investigation required.
Anyway, I took the KH1 as a back-up - small enough to chuck in the pack and I know it works - and a quick run on 20M and 40M CW got it done. Shame I didn’t also have the Quansheng with me as a back-up to try and get some challenge points (and on the subsequent two summits GW/SW-009 and GW/SW-015).
Need to try and make my way to ES at some point to enjoy some of the fabulous weather you have up there!
Well there are two summits the locals don’t make a fuss about but Meall Alvie GM/ES-055 and Pressendye GM/ES-047 will blow your mind if you get to activate them on a crisp sunny day with a good recent application of snow.
Paul @G4IPB will attest to Meall Alvie and the views from Pressendye today were stunning, never mind the trees, smells and birdsongs. Could be one of the best wee hills of all time!
My roll up Jpole detunes significantly when wet, especially if it is close to a wet fishing pole. The 450 Ohm ladder line stub is very sensitive to this, and cold low cloud does a good job of coating it in condensation. I have demonstrated this at home with antenna analyser and fine sprayer.
The worst offence is running the pole through one of the slots in the ladderline to stop it blowing out horizontal. I no longer do that in wet weather
Thanks for the tip Adrian. I wasn’t aware that the impact could be so severe.
I’ve had comments before when operating in misty/rainy conditions that my signal fluctuated significantly. I tend strap the ladder line to the pole in a couple of places to prevent it from flapping around. I will reconsider in future.
Not quite so blue on Saturday, this will give your blue pixels a rest!
Here is Lochnagar GM/ES-008 from Pressendye GM/ES-047. My car was about 4km away down in the green valleys. But at 930 there was lots of frozen ground still down there.
A lovely day on Snaefell too, even if most of the white stuff had disappeared by the time we came down for lunch. Great to work some familiar names from GM with a couple of HBs and 9 S2S being a very nice bonus. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any contacts on 2m SSB but the HF side of things more than made up for it. Thanks for organising this!
Just two more hills on the way home. Just off the M90 on the way back home sits East Lomond GM/SS-198 and West Lomond GM/SS-154. Parking was really easy and encouraged by Frasers description despite the lack of time I activated both. The hills are popular so rather than set up on HF I decided to try om just 2m. I had a really poor report from the first contact and a wiggle of the feeder confirmed the issue - the feeder had failed probably due to being folded in the rucksack. After a quick panic I found an RH-770 (?) in the rucksack and 2m was back on. This made the S2S with Tim on GM/ES-024 even more surprising.
A very big thank you to everyone in GM who worked me on 2m and allowed me to qualify the summits without HF. 73. Paul
And me! I just need to catch you on the other 4 now. I go for months at a time without speaking to any Manx operators, then got 2 last Friday. You being on GD-001 was the icing on the cake though
But wasn’t on there for long (getting cold by that point). One day, one day…
Now I need to go for the Complete!