Leandro G5LSI had suggested a meet up and a POTA at Skipwith Common. I did not need much persuasion to say yes to a day out playing radio. I had not been back there since getting my Kilo and Repeat Offender Activator awards so was a little excited about going back and really looking forward to the group meet up.
Forecast was not looking good for day with showers and chilly weather predicted so I packed a big tarp and made sure I had lots of supplies and enough gas for the stove. Bacon butties and brew really make a good activation into a great one.
Leandro G5LSI was there when I arrived and he had with him some local university students who were interested in radio and he had invited them to come and have a look at what we did on an activation.
We decided to back my car up to Leandro G5LSI ’s and throw the tarp over to create a shelter for use to work out off. Once that was done, I got my mast and dipole set up from 40 meters and got the radio plugged in. On checking the power connections, I saw on the connectors was broken, Oh NUTS! Time to MacGyver something.
First realised I did not have my Swiss Army knife with me, this was going to be a little bit of an issue, how do you strip a wire without a penknife or tools? A spark of genius I remembered I had the big first aid kit with the big tuff cut shears, would that work? Yes, it would!
I cut the remains of the connector off and striped the sheath off the wire so I was left with bare cables, I tried to push them in to the hole for the connector and the radio powered on when we pressed the power button on the battery box but the joy was short lived as the cable slipped out, tired again trying to tape the cable in but it was not a good or stable connection. Disheartened but not defeated we need another idea, I looked through my battery box and saw there was an extension cable that we might be able to use. One of the students offered to help me and I was glad of the help. We cut on the connectors of the extension cable to give use some bare wire and twisted it together with the cable, plugged it all in and nothing! What now? Should have checked all the connections in the battery box, with fumbling around in there I had knocked the internal connection off, once that was reconnected power was restored!
Time to get on the radio, Leandro G5LSI was on 20m so went on 40m, found a frequency and called CQ and spotted myself. The calls were coming in, and I was getting lots in the log, when the radio powered off. The connection had failed again.
Al M7FPX had arrived so I thought he might have had some tools and he did. We borrowed his Leatherman multi-tool and fixed the connection.
As I had enough to activate the park, I lets the others have ago with the radio on 40 and see what they could do. I decided to put the kettle on and make a brew.
Richard G4FBA came to visit us and see what we did on a POTA activation. We great having a chat and a brew with lots of people who all enjoy the same hobby in general, but each have different favourite bits of the hobby.
Time moved on and it was time for food. I had brought the Trangia so I could make bacon butties for who ever wanted one. When we activate from the cars I try to make it a bit more civilised then when I activate from just my rucksack. The butties were gratefully apricated by all.
Will 2E0WTI arrived and he got on 40m and was getting some good contacts, once he had had his fill it was my turn again.
This time I spotted myself as doing the BOTA as well as the POTA and I was not quite ready for the pile up I got. 28 QSO’s in 12 mins, it was very intense but using POLO to log all of them all made it easier and as it pulls the users name from QRZ.com I could be a bit more personal on the calls. After that I need a little rest before Al M7FPX and myself tried our first proper CW QSO and we did it! After that I messaged Hannu OH1HAQ and then did another CW QSO with him (with AL M7FPX’s help when I could not decode the CW)
It was a great day and we all had a lot of fun, cannot wait for the next one.
| Operation Details |
| Park: https://pota.app/#/park/GB-0021 Grid square: IO93lt WAB square: SE63 |
| Working Conditions |
| Icom IC-7300 Sotabeams tactical mini Sotabeams Band Hopper III Ham2K Polo |
| Operation Totals |
| 61 QSOs 10 DXCC Entities 14 P2P 1 B2B 8 Band and 3 modes 80m – 1 SSB 40m – 2CW, 47 SSB 20m – 2 SSB 17m – 1 SSB 15m – 1 SSB 12m – 1 SSB 10m – 1 FM 6m – 1 SSB |
