My Quangsheng (sporting a NA-771 whip) lives in my car… just in case.
The day was supposed to have been timed completely differently. I was meant to be back home after a ride… washing the mud off everything I touched that morning. Nothing lined up unfortunately - I had’t even left the house yet.
Feeling annoyed, I decided to try to make the most of the sunshine by setting off for a late walk (after the clocks change, anything after 2pm is a bit late in my books).
I had made a friend aware that there was a TA S2S event on - he was going to head in the G/SC-008 direction with another operator for SOTA/POTA, to try to get some 10m contacts.
Boots on, radio in side pocket, walking poles deployed. I set off.
We had been messaging earlier in the day, and about 30 seconds from the summit I got a message stating that he’d only just got to his location. So I rushed up to the summit and called CQ on 145.500 - hoping to make distance to Win Green.
I was quite surprised we were able to make contact - I didn’t have my usual flowerpot setup with me. Just a whip and HT. He had to phase in, but once his position was established, we were able to QSO with no problem. I left them on 145.475 just in case they wanted additional 2m contacts.
Two contacts without any intention of activating the summit? I thought, I might as well call CQ again!
I was rewarded with 3 more contacts - two of whom have saved previous activations in the past (G7KTE, and G6TEQ). G6TEQ happened to be my fourth contact, so he’s been awarded my gold star.
My final contact (MW7VVX) was also sporting a HT with a rubber duck. Whilst marginal, we were able to exchange reports and callsigns.
The G/SC area can be quite dry on simplex. Normally, I’d take my flowerpot antenna to give myself a chance of getting into Wales.
Not bad for what was meant to be a quick 5 mile stroll, and it’s good to know that Hams were listening - particularly the MW station who was out and about with his HT.
