Beach Activation

I knew it was going to be cold and windy on the beach, but the sun would be shining. I wouldn't make the same mistake I made on New Year's Day; I wore a warmer coat, brought a scarf (that I knitted last weekend), and had some thick socks on. Nothing was going to stop me from activating from the beach.

I drove about an hour to Cley Next The Sea to activate Black Joy Fort. It's a reference with no part of it standing but it is in the reference area for Norfolk Coast AONB. I took a short walk down the beach so that I was within the Blakeney NNR, Norfolk Coast AONB, and within 1 kilometer of the ECA reference. I set up the M1ECC Slidewinder DX with my Xiegu X6100. As I've mentioned, I'm getting more into the QRP game, so I figured no time like the present. 

I started on 40m CW and after about 30 minutes and 23 contacts, I realized that I was only working with 3 watts. I guess I'm getting more into QRP than I thought! I did get the power up to 5 watts but I'm not sure it made much of a difference. I moved to 20m CW shortly thereafter with 26 contacts; one of them was to TX which was one of the furthest contacts I've made on 20m.

I decided to end the activation on 17m. I've never used the M1ECC antenna for any bands but 20 and 40, so I was not sure it would go that high. It had no issues and got another 7 contacts in just 10 minutes. One of them was to Michigan. 

The activation took about 2 hours which is on the short side for me to do an ECA reference but about on par for a WWFF activation. Although working QRP didn't slow me down, I did CW only so missed out on SSB hunters which seems to be where most of them are. I am trying to get more CW contacts so that I practice and improve my head copy.

The activation ended with 55 contacts from 22 DXCC entities. I was able to qualify for POTA - Norfolk Coast AONB, WWFF - Blakeney NNR, and ECA - Black Joy Fort. I also got to wear my new scarf and can't believe what a difference it made! I'm not sure where I'll be activating next, but you can bet I'll be having a blast!

de M0NZZ 




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