Some 6m Es in the morning - and interesting at lunchtime. Saw EI4DQ calling W4AS for one period. Didn't hear him at all.
When I was working EA7L on the vertical, I did get a flag from NP4G at -15 which was interesting. Went onto the beam and CQed in that direction but nothing doing. A little later I did see KP4JRS calling VE2WX for one period. And that was pretty much it for the day on 6m - a few odd decodes afterwards but nothing substantial.
In the evening, I did a 'What's So Special about VHF' for the Appledore club. Hope they liked it. It was nice to see Terry G4CHD there. Terry used to teach the RAE course in Cheltenham in the early 1980s. I self-studied, but many, many amateurs in the Gloucestershire area owe their licences to Terry's tuition.
I stopped doing daily updates because I was a bit conscious I was flooding the Cloudlog feed with fairly mundane posts.
Reading the Cheltenham ARA newsletter today, Mark G4MEM very kindly mentioned that he'd been reading these posts. Thanks Mark! So, perhaps I should go back to slightly more regular updates.
Bit of a busy day and therefore not much radio activity. In the morning, it was time to write the VHF Column for PW and send it off to Don. After that, it was Bee School near Haverfordwest. An interesting afternoon, despite being stung! Ouch!
Got back and found RI0SP on 20m CW. He's in HR56 now.
Not much doing on 6m today, so far.
I've got a 'What's so special about VHF' talk for the Appledore club tomorrow. Thinking about what I could include, I wanted to develop the story about the Quansheng UV-5K on FT8. After the talk to Yorkshire Mesh the other week, I hadn't tried what Mike G5TAR did, to get the UV-5K to transmit on FT8 by setting the mode to USB (DSB) and then using the phone audio coupled (that's fancy talk for holding the phone close to the microphone and speaker of the rig!) to generate and receive the FT8. It worked just fine! Which of course has me thinking about more possibilities when operating portable!
Bit of Es into Europe this afternoon when we got back from our Welsh lesson and then noticed G0GGG working (I think) K6ZZ. That caught my attention and I spun the beam around to North America. As it turned out K6ZZ was in the EM grid (EM78?). I didn't see much from him but W9OO was around, but didn't hear me. I did work Tim WW1L though which was good. Nice to see the band opening up to the west. I should probably leave the beam over there now.
In the evening there was some decent Es around to the south - nice to see old 6M CW compatriot, CT4KQ coming through on FT8. It'll be nice to work him again after all this time - I guess we first worked in the late 1980s on 6m CW.
Around 1900z I was monitoring on the vertical on 6m and noticed WW2DX coming through strongly! Sadly he could only hear me at -20 despite being +16 - so the QSO barely made it - but interesting to see the band open again anyway.
A little bit more Es down to Italy on 6m this evening but perhaps the highlight today was working ET3AA on 17m CW for a new country. I'd heard ET3AA on 21MHz a little earlier - not too strongly but I found him on 17m with a good signal and after a few calls managed to get him in the log.
First 6m Es QSOs of the season for me today down to the south to EA and CN8.
Caught an opening to Italy on 6m in the evening - just worked a few stations remotely from Broad Haven - waiting for a pizza at the beach!
In other news, the Alpha tripped the power to the shack again today - it had been over a week since the last occurrence, so I'd hoped it was fixed! I cleaned it out a bit more thoroughly this time. This morning it tripped as I turned the band switch. I assume it was something physical moved, but it's hard to tell.
It's May Day, so there are a bunch of '81' callsigns from Russia and Belarus this morning. Worked a few for fun.
Highlight of the day was working D60DX on 15m CW for a new country. Very happy about that one as I made a good few QSOs from there as D68C way back when. Looked at D60DX's QRZ page and the pictures looked familiar.
Another misty morning here, so I started off on 2m with a nice easy QSO with M0JBM and then a little later with EI3EBB.
Bit of fun and games this afternoon with the Alpha. It was in standby mode and started tripping the shack supply. It wasn't on load or anything, so I could only conclude there was dust or fur in it again. This time, I took the top off and gave it a vacuum out. It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. I put the top back on and so far, no tripping....fingers crossed.
Despite the higher solar flux, I can't say conditions have seemed great. Nice to work Chuck K4QS on a SOTA trip on 15m as well as a couple of QSOs with Z66SP. Worked XQ3SK on 10m CW quite late on, so nice to hear the band open. Got a bit of a hint as the 10m FT8 SDR/Loop was seeing a fair bit from South America.
Most of the QSOs today on 2m - nice to work a few stations, nothing terribly distant. M0JDK in IO92 and M0JBM in IO81 the best. Did hear G4LBJ (JO02) and M1GEO (JO01) well this morning, but they couldn't hear me today.
A few UK/EI CW QSOs in the morning and then in the evening, some Florida QSO Party contacts on 20m.for a little DX.
From the east coast, 2m is going well. I was pleased to work Dan M0MST in the Cotswolds on 2m FT8. I'm guessing he was beaming east originally as when I called him, he came well up. Also nice to work TM8DW in JO00 on 2m. Not often I work that far on 2m with the vertical. Looking at the QRZ entry from TM8DW, it's a Marconi Day station, but more significantly, F4FET is involved, who always has a good signal on 2m.
A bit more than usual on 2m so it was nice to make a few QSOs.
Worked a handful of stations in the UKEI CW contest on 7 and 14 MHz in the evening.
Noticed last night as I was playing around that the DX Commander had an SWR of around 1.5:1 on 40m. Not the end of the world, but it's normally better than that and in case of QRO operation, it's better to keep the amplifier happy by reducing return power! When I went out on my rounds (chickens, Polytunnels, birds etc) I pulled the aerial down and had a quick look and the problem was what I hoped it was - the very top section had collapsed down a couple of inches. I extended the section, put the aerial up and the SWR is now as it usually is at just over 1:1.
I suppose I could super glue that top section. I've got clips on all the joints below, but this bit of pole is too small for one of the clips.
2m still seems decent although no DX here (on the vertical at least). When I got to the shack TX9W were on 20m FT8, but it seems they went QRT just as I came on!
Actually - got back late afternoon from a trip out and noticed the top of the DX Commander had slipped again! I've put some tape on it for now and that should hopefully keep the top of the pole extended. More drama when the Alpha amp seemed to trip the shack electric supply - probably a bit of dust or fur (Pippi the cat...) in the EHT. Firing it up again seemed to clear the problem after a second.
Not much of interest on HF today; Z66SP - you don't hear many of those. And UN8JNZ on 20m - a nice QSO.
