FIELD DAY

First Day BackPacking!

Today I put my backpack on and had a short climb up to the top of the hill at the back of my house. As you can see in the photo below, there's Rivington Pike on the left side of the distant hill and a bank of trees to the right of it.  The Pike is far too populated with dogs, kids and walkers, so I opted to put my station up in the gap between the trees.

The walk up to the trees is short but steep. You get the impression that you're not supposed to go there and that's exactly why I did. I was on my own and it stayed that way all day.

When I got to the top I rang the Station Manager at home and asked her to take a photo zoomed in...

I setup the SotaBeams Tactical 7000HDS and their BandHopper DualBand dipole (20/40). Once I switched the radio on (Elecraft KX3), there was nothing - pure silence - such was the noise floor. That never fails to bring a smile to the face of a radio amateur :-)

Spinning the dial on 40M brought in big signals, mainly from European Contests. They were booming in and in all honesty were causing bedlam on the band. One UK operator that I was speaking with was quite angry with an Italian station that had muscled in just1 Mhz away, causing all sorts of problems. 

The fist contact of the day was a Special Event station from Belgium - OT10WCA. He was 5/9 to me and he reported me as 5/5 with "great audio". I was quite pleased with that report, but even more so when I looked at my radio and found that I was actually on the 5 WATT setting (70 miles per watt). 

The Elecraft, the BandHopper and the location really got off to a great start, so I started spinning the dial in search of more.

The second contact was another Special Event Station (Museums On The Air) GB2CPM from West Sussex. There was lots of QRM and QSB but we managed to have a short QSO.

Next up was GM0CME in Banf, Scotland. Mike gave me a 5/6 and he was 5/9 to me. We had a good chat and to me, this is far more preferable to a quick radio report and a 73! Then it was onto a guy called Tearlach in Scotland (Inner Hebrides). Another great "chat".

Next up was a station in South East Essex! It was a guy called Kevin (M0KEB) and we were 5/8 to each other.  Kev was using a Yaesu FT-DX500 (envious) and he was also a biker like me, so we had a discussion about both our hobbies. 

Then I spoke with Tony (G6MNL) in Southampton.

Next up was Jens (DB9SAS) in Voerde, West Germany. Another great QSO. I made lots of other contacts in Europe but sadly, none from across the pond, despite being very much in the right spot. 

I had a look around 20M but it was flooded with more contesters, so I decided to call it a day. Although I don't mind helping out contesters by providing them with a report, I just can't be bothered logging them all. I want to talk with people from foreign lands and ideally meet someone on the air with similar interests to myself.

Just before I started to pack up (the weather was changing too), I picked up my handheld and put a few shouts out on 70cm - nothing! A CQ on 2M resulted in a chat with Steve (M6YCE) and Bill (M6JVF). Bill was working the WMRC Special Event Station (Museums On The Air) with callsign GB0PIT. Unfortunately, I never managed to make a contact with any of the operators on HF.

So a great few hours spent in the great outdoors, nice weather, good temperatures and fabulous views! The radio work was good experience for future trips out and taught me a couple of things :-) So I climbed back down the hill to the truck and went home for a nice (but late) Sunday Lunch.

  

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