It
was a super hot day for the 144MHz RSGB Low Power contest on Saturday 1st August, and I’d
arranged access to the private farmer-owned summit of Walbury Hill (IO91GI44, 297m or 974ft).
The purpose was twofold; i) to help Jules M0UGA test some new aerials, ahead of
the R1 September 2m Trophy and ii) to have a quick play on 6cm 5.7GHz to try and spot the Farnham beacon!
I
arrived early and set-up a small 2m station with the IC-275E and an HB9CV. On
6cm it was the usual Pluto SDR and 60cm Grid Dish. No one was about on KST, so I had a tune around and quickly heard the GB3FNM at Farnham very
loud (IO91OF16, 47km). Interesting that my Pluto seems to be 10KHz high, I need to
look at that as the beacon is on 5760.920MHz. It is supposed to be locked after adding a TCXO, I need to look at its calibration!
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| 6cm Beacon Hunting from Walbury Hill |
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| Testing 2 x 11ele PowAbeams at 13m (42ft) |
On
144MHz, the new configuration of 2 stacked 11 element PowAbeams went up
very easily on the 42ft (13m) mast with gin pole with basically one
person! Jules M0UGA was very pleased with his recent engineering and
purchases! We both had a play, using various radio and SDR combinations,
working pileups for a couple of hours. We contacted stations all over
the UK and into Europe. The HB9HB beacon (JN37QF, 789km) was a
consistent 55-57 so a useful strength. A great test of the 144MHz DX
contest station set-up with new aerials, mast, radios, amplifiers and
generators all working very well toegether. We did not enter it was just
for fun and as an experiment.
There
were plenty of visitors to the trig point during the day, including M7XEM who
had just passed his Foundation License during Lockdown and was operating SOTA
(Summit G/SE-001) on HF. We talked about GHz and I've sent him some info on how to get started. Overall another fun enjoyable day and nice to get out in the open again to
simply learn and play radio!