For the June SHF UKAC I decided to return to Lacey Green (IO91OQ) the Pink Road lay-by. The is is an excellent location 235m ASL with a clear take-off from West through to North. I was joined by Richard G8FUO and the objective was to generate much needed GHZ points for the Drowned Rats team.
We were truly blessed with a hot clear summer evening, and as the temperatures cooled we experienced an amazing tropospheric duct. The temperature inversion produced some incredibly strong signals on 10GHz into the north of England.
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| June SHF UKAC Lacey Green | |
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| Lacey Green Visible Horizon (Source: HeyWhatsThat) |
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| 3cm PB ODX 337Km G4KUX |
A record 8 QSO’s on 10GHZ and a couple of 5GHz QSO’s so a very rewarding evening. Richard G8FUO/P also worked a good number of stations on both bands and we were observant of the 15 minute rule when using shared equipment. A great outing, creating a good number of team points for the Drowned Rats UKAC pot.
After setting up, the first task was to get some quick points on 5GHz WBFM. After a couple of calls on the new UK Microwave talkback frequency of 144.390MHz, Stewart G0LGS/P and Matt 2EOMDJ/P were worked on Cleve Hill (IO81XW) which is practically LOS. I’d worked them both on the Sunday from Xmas Common. Lacey Green is a bit further away. So I was pleased to extend my ODX to 91km with the FPV modules and 2W to the 60cm grid Dish. There was an incredible amount of Wi-Fi co-channel interference so we had to move channels several times. I also tried with Matt G8XJY on Titterstone Clee (IO81QJ) but the path was obstructed and this was not helped by some local trees.
On 10GHZ the first station in the log was G4EML/P (IO91SF) on the South Downs, then both Stewart and Matt, then Pete G4CLA (IO92JL), Neil G4LDR (IO91EC), and Dave G4RGK (IO91ON). Using KST I was able to grab the attention of Pete G3PHO (IO93GG) and finally Nick G4KUX (IO94BP) at 337km and a new PB all-time 10GHz ODX for me with just 200mW. Nick was so loud, a huge signal end-stop on the FT-290R Mk1 and inside the duct.
