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

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! 

When I arrived at the site of my activation, my club's Saturday Morning Net was just starting. I heard a familiar voice and callsign to begin the net and I called from my HT to check in and let them know I'd be listening. I also did a quick plug for ECA and where I'd be on 2m in case anyone wanted to try for a simplex contact. Throughout the day, I didn't get anyone on the HT but I always bring it just in case. 

The SOTABEAMS pole works well if it is propped in the crook of some tree limbs and I guided the end fed down to the ground. I used a tent peg to keep the feed point just off the ground, plugged in the FT-817 and was ready to go. I started on 40m CW and was fairly successful at first. I moved to 20m CW and got quite a few hunters. Wow! This FT-817 is great on CW; I should try SSB.

I dug through my bag. Checked the pocket where I would usually keep the microphone. Nothing here. Checked the other pockets and could not find the microphone. Great... SSB is where most of the hunters are and I can't even get contacts with them. 


    There it is! Right where I left it.

    There was no choice but to continue on CW. I did a bit of hunting and found some special event stations, the one that stands out the most was HF77DIORA. I then went back to 40m to try to get some folks who may not have been around earlier and was relatively successful. I moved to 15m CW and squeezed out 2 contacts. Not bad for the first portable contacts I made on 15m. I realized there was a contest going on so I went back to 20m CW and hunted  contest stations for my last 6 contacts which brought me to 51 for the day. 

    When using the FT-817, I did not have any pileups but I did come across a few when I was hunting contest stations. My 5 watts wasn't enough to bust the pileups but I did notice that the receiver did not overload like the Xiegu X6100 does. Maybe this old Yaesu still has some life left and can be my go-to portable radio. I'll need more testing in more trying situations. I'll also need to test out SSB at some point but so far, this cheap old radio has impressed me and I'm looking forward to more activations with it in future.

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

    de M0NZZ



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