I took a quick trip out today to see if my bad experience on HF yesterday (on G/LD-046) was a one off.
I walked into the trig point field and set up the PFR-3 running 5W into a 17m wire supported in the middle at 5m and fed against a 13m counterpoise.
Calling without a self spot on 40m brought in a good run of 14 stations from all around Europe. A QSY to 30m was not so good as I couldn’t raise a response… but then I couldn’t hear anybody active on the band at all!
I moved to 20m but after calling for a while on 14.058 with no response, I went off looking for stations. I ended up having a solid, 5 minute QSO with KF3B in Pennsylvania. I don’t know who was more surprised, me for snagging him or him after being told I was QRP!
I worked one more (a 9A IOTA station working split up 1) on 20m and then moved back to 40m for a listen before packing up. I was really pleased to make S2S with MM3BRR/P on GM/SI-199 just before I shut down.
Thanks to all callers and to F5AKL for the spot. It was better day for 40m so I assume conditions picked up somewhat …or the dry chalk hills suit my antenna versus the rocky, grass covered hilltop yesterday.
A spontaneous afternoon outing today to the Woods in glorious weather was a real treat at the end of the day.
I set up the PFR-3 and long wire in the trig point field amongst masses of buttercups. I called on 7.032 and it didn’t take too long before I had worked a run of 11 stations there (DL, HA HB9 and OE) and just one on 10.118 (F) with my 5 watts.
One interesting (and somewhat disturbing) point… about half way through the QSO’s, my Palm Paddle started acting up by sending extra dits and dahs. Kurt HB9AFI took the brunt of this rubbish just as I was about to explain I was using my PFR-3! Sorry Kurt…
I normally have the key adjusted quite “fine” but I must admit I did these adjustments outdoors back in the winter on a pretty cold day. Today it was sitting in full sun for a while and I wonder if the heat on the black paddle caused the gaps to get too small. Anyone else experienced that? Maybe I should just slacken the gaps off a touch?
…only after a few beers. I would slacken off the contacts. Outdoors is no place for a gentle touch. If you really want bad CW try a touch-sensitive paddle on a damp foggy day. I experimented with one just once - never again.
A spontaneous afternoon outing today to the Woods in glorious weather
was a real treat at the end of the day.
Your having a laugh aren’t you. Glorious weather indeed. I started off with sun and blue sky and ended up in needing two fleeces and my Goretex jacket and overtrousers. The wind was howling, the rain was heavy and cold, in fact I had some hail. And it was cold, more like November than May. Absolutley perishing, about 4C wirh 30mph winds. Another and, there was hardly any propagation to be had on 60m either. The WX was so bad I didn’t hang about to try 40m.
At least my PalmPaddle didn’t play up. Though with my sending you’d never know if it was me or the key!
The WX back home was glorious all day according Sarah. It had just started to cloud up when I got back around 6.40pm. I’ve just posted some pics into the Flickr group showing how the weather changed in only 90mins. A good example of how quickly and dramatically the weather can change on Scottish mountains.
