Winter Activities Update

English Castles Awards & World Wide Flora and Fauna: 

Winter has been tough for finding time to get on the air. I activated 3 castles and 1 WWFF reference in January. It has been a goal of mine last year and this year to get out an operate portable at least twice per month. Some people may find this simple, but with my busy life I really have to try to fit it in.

ECA:

I activated Castle Acre Castle, Castle Acre Priory, and Castle Acre Town Defenses for English Castles Awards winter activities. This 3-in-1 got me the first level of Winter Activity award which was great. I had to visit the location twice to get them activated. 

For the first attempt, I set up in a field just off from the priory. I had brought my FT-817 and KM4ACK end fed antenna. I strapped my telescoping pole to a tree stake and strung the antenna up just fine. I had gotten about 30 contacts between SSB and CW but after about 2 hours, my fingers were frozen from the wind and cold. I was seriously concerned I would end up with frost bite so I packed up with my tail between my legs. This was not the first time I had attempted to activate a castle and missed the 50 contacts requirement on the first trip. The following weekend, the weather was worse with some rain so I activated from the priory car park with 50 watts of power and my FT-891.

WWFF/Brass Monkey:

A quick reminder: Brass Monkey award is activating 2 references each month between December and February. Each reference must be different. I activated Bradfield Woods NNR for my first Brass Monkey of January after having done 2 references to qualify in December. I was activating from the car (again) and had purchased a new mag mount. I wasn't thinking about how that would change the SWR of my ham sticks and failed to bring with me a hex key set. I quickly grabbed my M1ECC Slidewinder DX from the boot and set it up on the mag mount. This antenna is amazing. I was on the air in no time. The activation was a little slow as I had some ragchew contacts on CW; my skills have increased so much that I don't usually write down letter by letter on a CW contact and can head copy around 15 WPM and a little faster on good days. 

My second Brass Monkey attempt for January was a complete bust... I never even got an antenna up. On the one day I had to spare, I searched the internet and found a spot where I could activate from the car or so I thought. I arrived to discover that the car park was closed, I did a quick search and discovered that the heath is closed in the wintertime. I drove to a few more places I knew that were relatively close to find somewhere to activate from the car (I really don't like activating from the car, but I just couldn't do the -2 C temperatures outside). All of the spots I went to had a car park outside of the reference area. I gave up. In earnest, I could have driven further away and found somewhere or done the same and attempted on a weeknight but I never got the chance. I'll have to try again next year.

Winter is not over and I do have more activations planned. I will be focusing more attention now to the ECA Winter Activities. I have found quite a few places to go that are either multiple castle references or are within a WWFF and POTA reference area. 

This summer I should finish my schooling and have more time for portable radio. I plan to work on my QRP game and transition more to that aspect of portable radio. After all, I have 3 QRP radios and only 1 QRO portable radio. I'll save the FT-891 for car activations. 

de M0NZZ

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