Hunstanton Lighthouse ENG-056 / English Lighthouse Challenge 2022

I headed north on a crisp, windy day with my son, Mick, as my passenger along for the adventure. With us we had the Xiegu X6100, KM4ACK End Fed Half-Wave, and a SOTABEAMS 7000HDS telescopic mast (not to mention the trusty Nintendo Switch Lite). The drive was about an hour and when we saw the sea, we knew we were close. 

The car park at the Hunstanton Cliffs was not busy for a day in October without rain, but much like so many car parks in the UK, the app that is used to pay is of course different that they two apps that I have set up from my phone. No matter. A short drive and we found along the road free parking, it only came with a bit of a walk. We headed off with hope in our hearts and dreams of QRP activation. This was to be my first English Lighthouse activation.

We set up with the SOTABEAMS mast strapped to the fence in the back of the aforementioned car park and ran the top of the end fed down and brought the feed point side strapped to the fence with the antenna pointed southwest with about a 30 degree angle. With a view of the beach and the Hunstanton Lighthouse to our left, I found a clear frequency and called "QRL?" on 40 meters CW. Just then, M0JJO showed up with his wife, Hannah, just to hang out for the activation.

No one seemed to have good service on our phones so it was a struggle to get spotted. After finding the right position of my jaw, I spotted myself on The Official English Castles & Lighthouse Awards Group FaceBook page and DXHeat. After a minute of calling CQ, M0MJA came back to my call. Congratulations for being my first ELA contact, Bob; there's no better person it could be. Bob runs ELA after all.

The Xeigu does not handle pileups well, and there were a few times that the receiver was overloaded and could not pick out calls well at all. The radio does well, however, to pick out weak signals and makes it very easy to check signal reports on the S-meter. QRP is a fun world and the X6100's beautiful screen and internal battery make it more and more appealing every time I operate on just 5 watts.

Justin, M0JJO, and I have spoken on the radio a number of times and have met only once by happenstance in a restaurant. We chatted between contacts about different experiences working portable and some of the activations he has done with Summits on the Air in Europe. He's a fellow CW operator so he got to pick out the calls as they came to me as well and we got a kick out of some of the weak stations and some of the stations that tried to call twice on the same band and mode. I did end up with 26 in the log all on 40 meters and 20 meters with a few getting in the log on both!

After I made my 26th contact (which came after only 50 minutes on the air), it was already 1300 local and we were hungry. Justin and his wife took off after I packed up and we said our goodbyes. Mick and I went to wander the beach quickly and the views did not disappoint. 

A quick stop at the obligatory fish and chips rounded the trip out just right. On the drive home, I had APRS running and noticed a beacon from just 1 mile away. 2E0DBS mentioned a frequency he was monitoring so a quick QSY on my trusty Yaesu FTM-300 put us in touch. We had a good chat about radios, APRS, and portable radio. It was a nice cherry on top to make a simplex mobile to mobile contact out of the blue.

Until next time, keep your batteries charged and your bags packed; you never know when the portable mood might strike.

de M0NZZ

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VHF Experimenting and WWFF/ECA Activating

Image
Years ago I made a roll up J-Pole antenna for 2m. I had never used this one in particular as it was a spare for a kit I was going to make (I never did). I recently, however, got a storage bin to keep some radio bits and bobs in my car so I don't need to keep them rolling around in the boot or lugging them in and out of the house whenever I want to operate. I figured that it was the perfect place for this antenna. Saturday morning I took my youngest with me to Thetford Warren Lodge to test out a 6m rubber duck antenna and this J-Pole. The lodge is an English Castles reference and within a World Wide Flora and Fauna reference. I had no luck on 6m but was not surprised with 6 watts and a rubber duck antenna. I hoisted up the J-Pole on my Sotabeams mast and managed 5 contacts on 2m simplex. I even checked into my club net using it and I usually can't get into the repeater from this area. Height is might. I logged the contacts for the 2 programs and packed up. There was another ques...
Read more

English Castles Awards: Ely Cherry Hill and Ely Old Bishop Palace

Image
I was searching last night for a castle I could activate today. There are several within about a half hour from my home, however most of them I am unfamiliar with. It's always tough trying to go somewhere new. What antenna should I bring? Will there be any public land to set up or should I activate from the car? Is 5 watts going to be enough? Should I bring my 100 watt radio? Eventually, I found a spot that I could activate two references from and I had been to the area that would suffice for both. I knew what antenna to bring and I knew I wanted to try my "new" QRP radio I blogged about previously. So, I packed my bag ready for a dual activation. I had my KM4ACK end fed, SOTABEAMS telescoping pole, and my Icom ID-51. I was ready to go.  I parked at a public car park in Ely and walked just about a quarter of a mile to Cherry Hill Park. From this site, Ely Cherry Hill (G-02357) was on sight and Ely Old Bishop Palace (G-02358) was just over the old castle mound. Perfect!  W...
Read more

A Free Day for Some Castles

Image
I had taken some time off from work to knock out some schoolwork but found that I had taken an extra day… shucks. I looked into a place where I could be relatively close to home to set up for a few hours and activate. I found Bury St Edmunds Abbey and Morton Hall, two castle references in Bury St Edmunds which is a town just 25 minutes from my house. Side note: I had found Morton Hall and sent it into the coordinator at ECA to get it added late last year. The two reference areas had a small part where they overlapped. Checking out some maps, it looked like most of that area was a public space. I packed up my Xiegu X6100 the night before and was ready go. In the morning, I dropped my kids off at school and made the 40 minute drive from the school to the park. I generally will park and walk the area to find a good spot to setup before I get my things out. It usually helps me get the lay of the land and keep myself from walking aimlessly with all of my gear (in this case just a small ...
Read more