It was very cold and dark, but thankfully dry for the last SHF UKAC of the year and I returned once again to the Pink Road layby at Lacey Green (IO91OQ, 235m ASL). This location has a great take-off but the site is quite difficult with a slope off the road and was very wet underfoot and muddy.
Band conditions were particularly poor yet again, plus lots of portables were missing so everyone's scores were down. On 13cm with the 1m WiFi grid Dish and 0.8W, 9 QSO's were completed with G8CUL, G4BRK, G3SQQ my ODX (IO93JC, 161km), G4LDR, G4ZTR, M0GHZ, G4ASR, G3XDY and G4CLA.
I switched on 6cm for the last 10 minutes to see who was reachable. The system is built around my Pluto SDR controlled by SDR Console and with a driver and final amp produces 7W into a 60cm WiFi dish . Two quick SSB QSO's were completed with locals G4BRK and G4CLA (my ODX IO92JL, 93km).
On 3cm, with the smaller 60cm Offset Dish and 1W I managed just four QSO's which is half as many as normal. Conditions were dire and I was both surprised and disappointed to fail with quite a few regulars. QSO's completed included G4YTL, G4LDR, G4ZTR (JO01KW, 118km) and G4CLA.
That's it for SHF in 2022! It's been quite busy, I've competed in 8 of the 11 UKAC's just missing the March, May and September events. I've been to Lacey Green 4 times which was my most visited site, Chilton which is furthest away twice and my local site at Britwell Hill twice (my worst scores!). There were not SHF trips to Walbury or Devils Dyke this year. Overall, it's been another reasonably good SHF year, with some fun outings and learnings! I'm already looking forward to 2023.