I know I haven’t started yet but I thought this was worth mentioning.
I’ve not used the radio in my car much for a few years. I drive from home to work which is a journey of about fifty five miles and for last four years or so I’ve been car sharing – I drive to a colleague’s house and we either continue to work in my car or his. It’s not particularly sociable to natter on the wireless when there’s someone else in the car so I’ve just not used it much.
Yesterday I was on my own so I made a point of switching the wireless on and calling through the local 70cms repeater, it was early in the morning and I really wasn’t expecting a reply. My local 70cms repeater is GB3CL in Clacton-on-Sea which is linked to GB3CE in Colchester. Before half past seven yesterday morning I’d had three QSOs on these repeaters which really made the journey go fast. I spoke to Mike, G4TVP/M, Colin, M1EAK and Jef, G7BKU. I know Colin and Jef well but I’d never spoken to Mike before so it was nice to make his acquaintance and it was a good QSO.
On the way home I had a shout through GB3DA on 2m and had a quick word with Martin, G7SQL who I’ve not spoken to on the wireless for many years although we did hook up at the Colchester rally earlier this year. He was chasing me around the M25 and up the A12 and when he went into a very dodgy reception area around Brentwood I had a very nice chat with Pete, M6PSI who I’ve been exchanging emails with for a couple of months and this was our first conversation on the wireless.
Finally when I got back into range of GB3CE and GB3CL I carried on the QSO with Martin, G7SQL and we were joined by John, M0DEX who kept me company until I got home.
Considering I’ve not used the radio in the car for a very long time, I was pleased by the number of people I spoke to yesterday. The coverage pattern of GB3DA is significantly smaller than it used to be when I operated through it before because it’s had a site change but it’s good to know that I can drive out of range of it and straight into GB3CEs coverage area.
