11 deg C when I left home (QTH near Shrewsbury) but only 8 deg when I arrived at the car park in the disused quarry area. Calm when I left home, quite a strong wind on the top. Set up the stepped dipole in line with the wind, self-spotted for 80M and off we went with a nice pile-up of a total of 18 QSOs. I was just completing with EI7GAB when the telescopic pole collapsed and the wire landed on the ground beside me. By the time I’d set it all up again and called QRZ? there were no replies. Apologies to anyone who was waiting and gave up.
Changing to 40M, a self-spot gave another pile-up, this time of 21 QSOs,on an increasingly noisy band. The last couple of QSOs were difficult due to a data station starting up very close, if not on top.
On 20M it was difficult to find a reasonably clear frequency. By the time I’d self-spotted and called CQ a couple of times, a KE9 station had come up about 1kHz away and was complaining about someone calling CQ on top of him. I gave him a couple of calls to no effect, and while I was spotting a clear frequency, the antenna came down again. If at first you don’t succeed, give up, go home and get some lunch. Appologies again to anyone hoping to catch me on 20
I hope to be out sometime over Easter, but I’ll try and find an obscure summit, not too far from home, avoiding the madding crowds (and wardens)
Regards, Dave, G6DTN