It was good to meet-up with Jules M0UGA and co-site at Britwell for the May RSGB SHF UKAC. Unfortunately due to work I arrived a bit later than intended. After setting up the masts the Farmer appeared from the field side so we had to take down and then re-deploy our masts so he could get his Land Rover out! I've met him a couple of times before and we had a natter, he is always interested in the locations of the stations worked. The fields are fallow this year being left for meadow grass to give them a chance to recover and he said there may well be sheep or cows crazing on them in the coming weeks.
First in the log on 6cm using the WBFM gear was Stewart G0LGS/P and Matt 2E0MDJ/P who were at Cleeve Hill (IO81XW, 79km). It's always a pleasure to work them on 6cm and their signals were absolutely massive.
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| 3cm and 6cm at the Britwell Farm Gate |
Something was not quite right with the 6cm SSB system which uses the Pluto SDR. The 4-way USB Relay that sequences the Yellow WiFi Amp, CMC 5W amp and the SMA Relay was not responding to SDR Console commands, this meant that just 1 local QSO was possible with Neil G4BRK (IO91HP, 24km).
On 3cm the band was in poor shape and only 4 local QSO's were completed with G4LDR, M0GHZ, G0LGS/P and with Dave G4RGK in Marlow (IO91ON, 17km). I also worked Stewart G0LGS/P and 2E0MDJ/P on 13cm. Activity and conditions were not great but it was nice to be out in the fresh air again and at least it was a reasonably warm evening and most importantly the weather (and the kit!) stayed dry.