It was a chilly but dry, calm evening up at Britwell Hill (IO91LO98) at 229m (751ft) on the Chiltern Ridge. For a change I decided to just focus on the harder "middle GHZ" bands, so 3.4GHz (9cm) and 5.7Ghz (6cm). At the halfway point I was joined by fellow Drowned Rat GHZ enthusiast Jules M0UGA.
On 9cm I worked 6 stations with a level of activity which could be described as rather busy! First in the log was Neil G4BRK (IO91HP) followed by 3 stations on Cleeve Hill (IO81XW) at 79km: Dave G4FRE/P, Stewart G0LGS/P and Matt 2EOMDJ/P. Then another local Mike G8CUL (IO91JO), David M0GHZ (IO81VK) which was marginal and finally G4ODA (IO92WS) my ODX at 144km. Not bad for just 0.2W with the coffee can feed and 60cm Offset Dish.
On 6cm I used the Pluto SDR with it's 7mw into a 1M Grid Dish. It was fab to work all 3 stations again over on Cleeve Hill on SSB. Our Hereford friends were turning my SDR screen yellow with massive signals. On open SMA (no RX aerial on the Pluto) they were still fully readable at -82dBm!
Overall a very enjoyable evening, I was really pleased with the performance on 9cm and to get a couple more 6cm QSO's with the Pluto.
 |
| G1DFL/P and M0UGA/P on Britwell Hill |
On 9cm I worked 6 stations with a level of activity which could be described as rather busy! First in the log was Neil G4BRK (IO91HP) followed by 3 stations on Cleeve Hill (IO81XW) at 79km: Dave G4FRE/P, Stewart G0LGS/P and Matt 2EOMDJ/P. Then another local Mike G8CUL (IO91JO), David M0GHZ (IO81VK) which was marginal and finally G4ODA (IO92WS) my ODX at 144km. Not bad for just 0.2W with the coffee can feed and 60cm Offset Dish.
On 6cm I used the Pluto SDR with it's 7mw into a 1M Grid Dish. It was fab to work all 3 stations again over on Cleeve Hill on SSB. Our Hereford friends were turning my SDR screen yellow with massive signals. On open SMA (no RX aerial on the Pluto) they were still fully readable at -82dBm!
Overall a very enjoyable evening, I was really pleased with the performance on 9cm and to get a couple more 6cm QSO's with the Pluto.