Towards the end of 2020 we had a 4-week "Lockdown 2" (31st October to 2nd December). Subsequent reigional tiering restrictions over Christmas meant that Berkshire went from Tier 3 to Tier 4, and all radio portable operations were curtailed by the RSGB. From the 5th of January 2021 we have been in "Lockdown 3", with radio only being allowed from home locations. Here's a quick summary of what I've been up to on the SHF bands above and including 2.3GHz in 2021:
- January SHF UKAC - The weather was horrible with gusty winds and rain, which meant that dish's could only be sited about 3-4m off the ground. I opted to try 6cm/3cm and with poor band conditions only G4LDR (IO91EC, 67km) could be heard. Dish pointing was very difficult, and unfortunatley we ran out of time to complete a QSO. I was late on after damaging (bending!) two of my swagged poles when walking the mast up. A guy rope got snagged, not helped by the weight and wind. I moved the dish's onto the telescopic EA mast. A lot of effort with no QSO's made!
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| Cold wet and windy on 3cm / 6cm in January |
- February SHF UKAC - Similar to January there were masive winds and this time I bent my EA Telescopic mast whilst hauling up the 2 dish's for 13cm and 9cm. Eventually using a third mast system I managed to get operational. 13cm was just the IC-275E, barefoot DB6NT G2 with 0.8W into the 1M TP-Link Grid Dish. It was great to be back on the band and albeit with mostly local QSO's within IO91 (G8CUL, G4LDR, G4BRK and G7LRQ). Keith G4ODA (IO92WS, 153km) was my ODX. I also heard Pete G4CLA (IO92) and Dave M0GHZ (IO81) but they could not hear my QRP. On 9cm I was using the Pluto SDR, Stealth SM3437 with 10W into the soup-tin can feed mounted on the smaller 60cm Offset dish as it was too windy to put up the 90cm bigger prime focus dish. I was dissapointed not to work locals G8CUL, G4BRK but the dish was again very low just 3.5m high and pointing into houses. I also tried with G4ODA, G4CLA, M0GHZ but heard nothing. It was great to work Neil G4LDR (IO91EC,67km) easily, for my only QSO, helped by pointing the dish through a gap between my house and some very tall trees.
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| Blowing a gale for 13cm / 9cm in February |
It looks like we will be still at home for the March SHF UKAC but the good news is that "Lockdown 3" will start to ease from March 29th!