Hello all just you might like to know how my solo expedition to East Sussex JO00EW went well.
After arriving late on Thursday evening I started to put up the antennas about 8am because I was concerned with possible wx conditions as the forecast indicated being wet.
My aerials was 1x 15 element on 144 MHz at about 25 feet and about 6 feet below 1x 5ele on 50 MHz the whole lot rotated from the bottom. I got that all up by about 11am next was the internals.
My portable station was my Yaesu 736R driving an amplifier delivering 300w on 144 MHz. The Yaesu 736R was also driving a 100w brick amp on 50 MHz and a Laptop for using WSJT software. My laptop was also linked to the internet for ON4KST Chatback. And a lightning detector with an audio alarm is very useful on an open hill. At this point I had a problem with the software this took about an hour to sort out.
So first contact was at 14.30 hours with OM3FC located in JN98VG the rest of the day was very slow due to the fact it is a long time to the peak.
Saturday went well but an aurora killed ‘Meteor Scatter’ to the North East. So I looked South West to ‘EA’ as I could see on ON4KST EA stations they were active from the north coast of Spain to SW UK. I managed to work 4 stations via tropo mode most were 59 SSB and I noted that stations in London and further North were giving 51 and 41 reports. However later about 2100 hours an E opening resulted but not for me as I was located right under the reflection point but I could hear EI working Central Europe no good to me being under the reflection point.
Next day was very poor after effects of aurora still present so operated on 50mhz ms for a while very interesting mode this.
Monday started early at 01.30 hours with 9A4EW on 144 ms worked best DX today RU1AC 2135 km RX1AS 2127 km last contact of the day was at 22.00.
Up early again on the day of the predicted peak 0440 hours and worked OH6KTL as the Peek was due around 10.00 hours but the peak was late, I think about 12.00 -13.00 hours.
I was up early again on Wednesday at 00.15 hours and worked a string of YUs then to bed for a while. Then awoke to 40mph winds and rain and my main concern was how am I going to get that antennas down in this weather wind but managed it safely and no damage to the antennas.
Prefixes worked OM SP E77 LY DG EA7 LA GM YT S50 IW ES6 9A4 S51 HA ES6 RU1 RX1 OH OK AO YL 9A3 YU YT.
Kevin G1KAW/P
