M0JCQ's Ham Blog ← Adventures in Ham Radio ← Page 5

A Raid on 5 Welsh SOTA Summits in One Day

Oct

24

2015

On Saturday 17th of October I drove from my home QTH in Hertfordshire to the south of Wales for some Summits On The Air fun. This year I’ve been to GW/SW quite a bit and have activated all the large summits in the Brecon Beacons. This trip was focused on the smaller 1 point summits ...

My First HF SSB Field Day 4

Sep

15

2015

My local club C&DARS (Chesham & District Amateur Radio Society) recently took part in the RSGB HF SSB Field Day and worked a total of 434 stations in 33 DXCC’s across the 24 hours. Band conditions weren’t great but we did get Saudi Arabia (HZ1FI/P) in the log and heard some VK’s early morning on ...

One of the Best – SOTA Activation of Shining Tor 1

Sep

1

2015

This was my second and final summit of the day (15th August) in the Peak District after activating Kinder Scout (G/SP-001) earlier in the day. Me and the YL arrived at the Cat & Fiddle pub car park at about 7pm, with the intention of a short walk and activation on Shining Tor before grabbing ...

Yaesu FT-270 vs Baofeng UV5R on Butser Hill

Aug

31

2015

Butser Hill (G/SE-004) was to be my 3rd and final SOTA activation of this day’s tour of Southern English summits. After the HF issues on Black Down (G/SE-003) previously, I decided to activate this summit on 2m FM only. Summit Factfile G/SE-004 – Butser Hill – 270m Latitude: 50 58 40 N, Longitude: 0 58 49 W Grid Reference: SU 716203, QTH Locator: IO90MX Parking: SU7117 2001 (N50:58:31, W0:59:15) – £3 pay & display! Trig: TP0316 – Butser WAB: SU72 ...

2m SOTA Activation of Black Down (G/SE-003)

Aug

31

2015

The SOTA summit of Black Down (G/SE-003) was my second of three summits on Sunday the 2nd of August. I headed here straight from my activation of Botley Hill (G/SE-005). This summit is another pretty flat summit, I can imagine the activation zone is quite wide. I chose to operate from the well hidden trigpoint ...

Fixing the Elecraft KX3 High SWR Issue 2

Aug

30

2015

A couple of months ago I installed the 2m Module into my Elecraft KX3 and after the install everything worked as expected, that was until I arrived at a SOTA summit only to find a really high SWR on all of the HF bands. On 40M the SWR was crazy at 99.9-1 and slightly better ...

SOTA Activation of Cleeve Hill on 2m FM

Aug

6

2015

Cleeve Hill (G/CE-001 – 330m) was my first of two summits on this wet Friday in July before heading to a music festival for the weekend in Herefordshire. The 2 hour drive from Hertfordshire was depressingly grey and the rain incessant. Predictably nothing changed when I pulled up into the car park (N51:55:16 W2:00:34) near ...

2m SOTA Activation of Botley Hill (G/SE-005) 1

Aug

5

2015

On Sunday the 2nd of August I had an opportunity to activate 3 SOTA summits in the South of England. The YL was taking part in the 100 mile Prudential Bike Race going through London and Surrey. This involved an early start, leaving our home QTH at 5:30am. After dropping her off in Hackney I ...

SOTA Activation of a Cloudy Worcestershire Beacon 1

Jul

29

2015

The SOTA summit of Worcestershire Beacon (G/WB-009) was to be my last of two summits before heading to the Nozstock music festival about 30 minutes drive away in Herefordshire. This day had been defined by heavy rain and things were no different when I arrived! Parking Tip: I parked for free in the lay by ...

SOTA Activation of Tor y Foel (GW/SW-013)

Jul

10

2015

Tor Y Foel (GW/SW-013) is 551m high and worth 2 SOTA points. I activated it on the last day (31st of May) of a long weekend in the Brecon Beacons. We had been in the Brecons for 3 days and had done 3 long walks (and 3 SOTA activations!), so this one had to be ...