3 Trips to Chilton for the July, August, September SHF UKAC's

After working Robert M0FXX from his home in Shiplake (IO91NM32) 2km across the River Thames to my home in Wargrave (IO91NL69) I offered to co-site to help him with his first couple of trips out on 10GHz. We decided to go to The Ridgeway Car Park at Chilton (IO91IN22) as this site has a lot of space and is great with a near 180-degreee horizon from West through North to East. 

Robert's system is state of the art with a DB6NT G5 transverter, 10W amplifier, VLNA to an I0JXX feed and 90cm PF Dish. This meant that he could often hear and certainly work more than my basic 1W system. Being so close together we were also able to tail-gate each other's QSO's, which was amusing and fun!

For all 3 outings I decided to take 13cm (FT-817ND, DB6NT G2, 0.8W and 1m WiFi Grid Dish) and 3cm (IC-9700, DB6NT G2, 1W and 1m Gibertini Offset Dish). Here's a quick summary of the 3 outings:

July SHF UKAC (30 QSO's)

13cm and 3cm at Chilton (July 2021)

With 13cm I managed 16 QSO's with my ODX Tony G8DMU/P (IO94CB, 281km). Super pleased with QRP results just 0.8W, my most QSO's ever on this band. It started dry, then we has some heavy rain in the 2nd half and I was sheltering under the umbrella, but otherwise the evening was very enjoyable. On 3cm I achieved 14 QSO's and my ODX was also G8DMU/P. Some tropo enhancement meant that this was also a record evening with the most QSO's ever on 3cm in one session. I was very pleased with that!

August SHF UKAC (18 QSO's)

Fantastic Views North at Chilton (August 2021)

On 13cm 12 QSO's were completed with ODX being Tony G8DMU/P (IO94CB, 281km). Overall this was a very slow evening with the usual KST meep chaos. On 3cm it was a lot slower and I only managed 6 QSO's, my ODX was G4ZTR (JO01KW, 155km). Conditions were not great and it was very windy. The big 1m dish blew over and luckily I caught it so there was no damage. Pointing and keeping a direction proved to be a struggle, and the lower guyed height wasn't ideal. But at least it was dry for this outing!

September SHF UKAC (16 QSO's)

G1DFL/P and M0FXX/P Co-sited (September 2021)

The weather was absolutely appalling and we set-up in a rain storm! Somehow I still managed a respectful 11 QSO's on 13cm my ODX this time was was Steve G0EAK/P (IO93RI, 206km). Heavy rain with gusty winds made for a tough outing, I nearly got washed off the hill. 

On 3cm I struggled to get going. The torrential rain provided challenges and my 1W was not enough to make use of the excellent RS. Only 5 QSO's were completed with ODX being John G3XDY (JO02OB,181km). I used the smaller 60cm dish which is always a compromise, but the drive-on plate and mast seemed to work very well. Towards the end I had an intermittent PTT issue due to water ingress into the 3cm transverter box. Despite operating from the back of the car, everything was soaking wet. I took 6cm but didn't get time operate on that band as I was trying to keep all of the kit as dry as I could!