The last time I visited Walbury Hill for the SHF UKAC was in October with 10 QSO's achieved (4 on 10GHZ, 3 on 5GHz and 3 on 3.4GHz). I decided to go back there for the June SHF UKAC contest. The weather had been very wet all month, which made it interesting driving along the unmade bumpy road to the middle farm gate. Several of the puddles were more like lakes!
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| 6cm and 3cm From a Moonlit Walbury Hill |
I met Jules M0UGA who was co-siting. We quickly set-up all of our various dishes and masts. On 10GHz the QSO's started to flow with G0LGS/P on Cleeve Hill (IO81XW, 77km), G4LDR (IO91EC, 31km) and then I had a great QSO with Dave G0LBK/P (IO93EH, 219km) who was on Houndkirk Moor near Sheffield for my ODX. It was good to work G4ZTR again over in Colchester (JO01KW, 174km), followed by Matt 2E0MDJ/P (IO81XW, 77km), John G4CLA (IO92JL, 127km) and David M0GHZ (I081VK, 53km). The GB3SEE beacon in Reigate was received at good strength.
On 6cm I had QSO's with Stewart G0LGS/P and Matt 2EOMDJ/P on WBFM, and then with the Pluto SDR on SSB I completed with G4LDR, G4CLA and M0GHZ. The Farnham 6cm beacon GB3FNM was very loud all evening. On 13cm I worked Matt 2E0MDJ/P to add to my points tally.
Overall I left very pleased with 13 QSO's (7 on 3cm, 5 on 6cm and 1 on 13cm), all the equipment worked well, the IC-9700 performed brilliantly. It was a really nice warm moonlit evening and great to be back playing GHz on one of my favourite hills.