Roadside Review

Comfort First!

The DX pedition this time was  on Saturday  the 17th of march and, given that the day after was mothers day  I didn't think it was a good idea to go out and about on that day . It turned out that mothers day was amazing ,sunny and warm rather than the windy and cold on that Saturday .

Fig (1)

Josh's parents now own a camper van and he had the use of it, so we set off in that. Now were to go,hmm well Josh suggested a place over in Lancashire up a steep climb and there was a reservoir at the top called Blackstone Edge, and believe me the water is at the edge. we however parked a little further down turvin road ( B6138)  Fig (2) and pulled in at a little parking space near the roadside Fig (1).

Fig (2)

As you can see from Fig (2) it was ok for take off for VHF  we had about 5 contacts, 

We also tried HF but that was a bust as there was some contesting going on.

The view was quite good  from there but the down side was that every time a vehicle sped  past the van shook.I nearly dropped my pie !

 

Fig (3)

this is were we parked 

The mast is working fine ,but it still needs those mast clamp tighteners changing from the round to a wing nut type for easier tightening. and let me tell you that 213 coax is HEAVY. the 5 element ZL special was using it and the HF antenna was using the mini 8 low loss.The ZL was vertical this time as I figured we might have a chance of obtaining more contacts 

The setup 

the radio and tuner 

It takes ages to set all the equipment up , and it was nearly dinnertime when we got everything up and running.so I settled in to the passenger seat and was ready to log any contacts, with a ham sandwich in one hand and a pen in the other I was ready.
Please note that the links take you to qrz.com but you must be logged in to see the details .

Those contacts were 

(1) G6XBF Walt over in Leeds ( no qrz page )

(2) G7CNM Dave over in Market Raisen

(3) 2E0EEY Chris over near armley in Leeds

(4) M3PWE Phil over in Tadcaster

(5) M3CJC Colin ,mountain in queensbury Bradford (no qrz page)

we were hearing quite a few state-side contacts ,but the pile up was just silly so we abandoned them to the contesters the noise floor up there was quite low  about an S1 . her in Quebec house its
about S3-4  with no preamp on, with it on it goes up to S9. .

Now all I need to do is source a leisure battery and a small generator and then I am all set to spend all day out doing a bit of  dx-ing .I might even get a small fold up table as well as my fold up chair. Ahhh  the luxuries.


Thats all for now ,don't forget to leave a comment. Thank you for reading and you can follow  me on twitter as well  (c) 2012 m1pac productions