It seemed like a good idea for the October SHF UKAC to go to Walbury Hill (IO91GI) near Newbury. Onsite I met with Jules M0UGA who was operating on 13cm. Band conditions were not that great, and it was very cold and windy at nearly 1,000ft. Not many folks were on, and the reward for a lot of effort was 10 QSO’s across 3 bands.
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| 6cm, 3cm and 9cm at the Middle Farm Gate |
On 3cm with the
IC-275E and 1W into the 1m Gibertini offset dish, and with a 13.2kc high offset on
the DB6NT G2, I manged to work 4 stations. First in the log its was the local's David
M0GHZ (IO81VK, 53km) and Neil G4LDR (IO91EC, 31km). A bit further afield I
reached Graham G8HAJ (J001JR, 162km) and John G4ZTR (JO01KW, 174km) for my ODX.
I heard Keith G4ODA but he was busy and I could not get into his or Pete G4CLA's KST queues.
On 6cm with the Pluto SDR, 7w Amplifier and 60cm Grid Dish again it was just 3 locals with Neil G4BRK (IO91HP, 33km), G4LDR and M0GHZ for my ODX.
9cm was equally dire, and due to the gusty wind I was using the smaller 60cm offset dish with soup can feed, 10W from the Purple Stealth Amplifier driven by the Pluto SDR. After working Mike G8CUL (IO91JO, 33km), G4BRK and M0GHZ (ODX) followed. G4ZTR could hear me but I could not hear him, and I did hear G4ODA working G4LDR but I could not raise either on KST at the end.
It wasn’t the best outing of the year. It’s certainly been a challenging SHF UKAC season with the lockdowns limiting /P activity. Fingers crossed that things will be less disrupted in 2021. I will use the winter break to complete the re-boxing of 13cm, 9cm and 3cm and the final tidying of 6cm.