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I’ve taken the day off work today (Friday 23rd February) to come to the Republic of Ireland for a weekend doing Summits On The Air (SOTA). Of course, walking up hills at this time of year is unreliable in terms of weather. It’s especially a risk if you have to book flights in advance, as…
This weekend I was fortunate to be invited to Terry G3VFC’s 70th birthday party with a difference. Planned by his sons Richard 2E1EVK and Rob M0VFC, the object was for a group of us to set up stations in a local Scout hall and to make QSOs with 70 DXCC entities. In the end, we…
A trip home to visit my parents in Devon gave me the opportunity for my first SOTA activation of 2018: High Willhays, the highest point on Dartmoor. It’s also the only SOTA summit on the moor, as most tors don’t have sufficient prominence to meet the P150 rule. This is a nice easy way to…
We always aim to have at least five stations on from the Camb-Hams for any of the AFS events, because it’s the top four scores in the team that are counted for the Super-league, and you never know when failure might befall one of the stations. Today, it was our turn to suffer from equipment…
Once in a while, two Cambridge primary schools, Queen Emma and Queen Edith join together for a day of extra-curricular, but curriculum-linked, activities for their students on a Saturday. Today, the theme was ‘Spoken Word’ and so Cambridge 105 Radio were invited along to give the pupils an experience of being on the radio. So,…
I was invited to Suffolk RED last evening for the opportunity to demonstrate the sort of equipment I take up hills for SOTA purposes. For those who don’t know, Suffolk RED (Radio and Electronics Development) is a monthly supra-club event, now into its fourth year, which has proved very popular in East Anglia. The premise…
I had a bit of spare time over the weekend, so gave away a few points in the French REF-CW contest. Equipment was my Elecraft K3 with just 40W out (to prevent QRM to neighbours) to my 30m dipole, tuned onto 40m. I’m not entirely sure how effective this was. Many stations seemed to struggle…
I operated with Rob M0VFC for the three RSGB 80m and 40m Affiliated Society Contests in January 2018 from Flossie, the Camb-Hams van, at our Worts Causeway site (JO02CE). CW (Sunday 7th January) This was a very fun event. We were using two Elecraft K3s, one with a KPA500, and the other with a Juma…
This post describes a project I’ve been working on during Christmas this year. It is a project that’s absolutely not for the inexperienced, so if you decide to take any of the ideas in this post – which you’re absolutely welcome to do – I won’t be able to assist. This is Part 1 of the post.…
In August 2017, I spent a few days doing some of the Summits on the Air summits in the Pyrenees. Monday 31st July Trône du Roi (F/PO-187): Attempt 1 After flying into Toulouse and getting a hire car (which took an unexpectedly long time), I drove to the Trône du Roi (King’s Throne) to operate,…