XLY was going out for a walk with dogs for the morning so if I was quick, I could get an activation in. Al M7FPX and I had been talking about trying to do a CW only activation with both of use listening and each aiding the operator with the decode.
We decided on Strensall SSI as it was about halfway between our QTH’s. I got a little lost on they way in but finally find Al M7FPX, we got cars parked up and the mast and antenna set up. Part of the common is used by the army for training so there would some interesting warning signs up.
We started by listening to CW both SOTA and POTA trying to find someone to reply to but all were to fast and too busy.
I then sent out a test CQ from the radio, you can program it send itself, so the code is well spaced and uniform. We only got picked up by one station and that was in England on the Reverse Beacon Network which was not good. We started to be worried about propagation.
I decided to try calling CQ and called a few times then suddenly was swamped by calls from other stations but none for use, I think we were too close to a station we could not here but the the others thought we were that station, we went QRT on that frequency.
Al M7FPX said trying to get some contacts on SSB and to activate the park. Started on 20m, calling CQ and got some replies but signals kept fading in and out.
We swapped over to 40m and had more luck with contacts, but conditions were still not brilliant, signals again fading in and out. Hunted another operator M9RVN who was at a 4fr which was good and also got Thomas F4FTJ who I have worked few times before in POTA. With enough in the log to activate we swapped over to CW and had a listen to see if we could hear and decode some stations.
We found Henry G5NOO, on 10m and his callsign with the double O made it easier to confirm it was him we could hear. We listened to him calling CQ and a few replies and then I took the punt and replied to him, and he came back to me, oh crap I got to do this.
Al M7FPX was helping me to decode the CW as he has better head copy then I do. I struggled though and finished the QSO.
I saw Richard G4TGJ/P activating a summit G/LD-052 which I have activated myself so really wanted to try and make contact with him. Again, listened to him getting contacts and when it went quite with no more hunters, I called him and he replied. Finished that QSO and I was sweating, 2 CW hunts whilst in a park myself, I was so happy.
We decided to call it quits as it had got quite cold sitting in the car.
| Operation Details |
| Park: https://pota.app/#/park/GB-1943 Grid square: IO94lb WAB square: SE66 |
| Working Conditions |
| Icom IC-705 Icom AH-705 Sotabeams tactical mini Sotabeams EFLW BaMaTech TP-III paddle Ham2K Polo |
| Operation Totals |
| 12 QSOs 5 DXCC Entities 5 P2P 3 Band and 2 modes 40m – 8 SSB 30m – 2 CW 20m – 2 SSB |
