After the recent heavy winds in Scotland it’s now time for the south of the country to get them and we’re forecast winds of up to 65 mph at some point over the next few days which equates to Storm Force 10. My Alimast from Aerial-Parts of Colchester hasn’t been lowered since it went up. […]
Days 337 to 343 – Aerial work at the Martello Tower and the 2m UKAC
I had a nice lot of QSOs on day #337, largely on the higher bands again. I was up at a reasonable time and had a couple of CQ shouts on 10m, first working UV3QF, Igor and UA6BCB, Vlad. I was then nicely surprised to be called by ZL4CZ, Steven who was a nice loud […]
Planning permission – I had a visit and a letter from the council
Planning permission is a subject I’ve steered clear of on this blog for one main reason. I don’t have any. I used to have a twenty foot pole on the side of my house with a seventeen foot long 2m beam for over fifteen years along with an 18ft vertical colinear for 2m/70cms, all with […]
Days 334, 335 and 336 – Not much happening
This is a very small update. The bands have been really dead in the evenings and the fact that I didn’t have an aerial for 40m following it falling down means it’s been a difficult three days. Day #334 was when the aerial fell down, I worked EA3DTD, Toni on 40m using half a dipole […]
Aerial down!
Yesterday I got home in the evening, switched the wireless on and had a couple of QSOs, one of which was on 40m. Much later, just as I was about to go to bed my wife suddenly said “Oh, I forgot to tell you, your long dangly thing has fallen down”. It appears that some […]
Review – November
I missed working one hundred countries in November by just four but that’s overshadowed by the fact that I’ve worked a large number of new DXCC entities this month and also have had a load confirmed on LoTW – An extra seventeen entities which has pushed me firmly into my DXCC award. I actually reached […]
Days 331, 332 and 333 – One more CW QSO in the log
Day #331 started off with some QSOs on 12m, I worked EA9IB, Pedro, EK6TA, Hovik, EW6DX, Igor and SV2HTI, Ilias. After that I spoke to WV4X, Don and IZ0VXL, Federico on 15m before going back to 12m to talk to YO3RU. I then had my eighth QSO of the year using Morse code. I worked ZD8N on […]
Days 328, 329 and 330 – Another new aerial
Day #328 was very nearly the end of QSO365! It’s incredible to think that the project could fail this close to the end but it only takes some bad propagation and it could all be over. I got home in the evening and the HF bands were dead. Really dead. I mean, you may think that the […]
Days 325, 326 and 327 – Three average days on the wireless
It’s getting to the time of year now that when I get home in the evening, the bands have largely closed down and with an aerial which doesn’t seem to be performing too well on the lower bands I’m starting to struggle a little bit. I’m aiming to take the OCFD down and replace it […]
RSGB UKAC ‘Activity Contests’ – My thoughts.
As a member of the Martello Tower Group, we operated in the RSGB UKAC contests from June 2009 until March 2011 and were reasonably successful for the full year of 2010. However the introduction of the M5 multiplier rule in 2011 really affected us badly and so we decided earlier this year that we would […]
