So the Monday night net came around again, seemingly faster each week. I had previously scouted google maps for another ‘high spot’ location within 10-15mins of Magor (home QTH).  I was rather taken by the area along side the A449, at the SE side of Wentwood.  I headed up to the following spot :

What a fantastic spot it was !!  210m ASL, clear views over to Bristol and the West Country, and a small rise/bank (some 10 ft) and then line of sight over to Cwmbran and beyond in the other direction. GB3RT was hitting me at 59+20, a perfect signal.

I was met by MW6FNV (Dale) who was testing out his new 2m/70cms Kenwood TM-V71 install in his classic beamer. I turned off the Defender, and moved into Dale’s beamer and we both worked his radio and antenna. It worked fantastic and the hours flew by.

A few of us gathered on GB3RT around 7:35pm, but later moved to 145.375 for some simplex operation. Stations on air :

Gw1sxt Mike 54
Gw8crh Ian 59
Gw0oaj John 59
2w0ogy chris 57
Mw6mun Jim 59
Mw0rpb Pete (as the net was closing down)

Thanks to SXT for joining us on the net and doing some radio tests, his antenna and setup working great. I think he was running a fixed position 10 ele yagi.

The net ended around 8:30-8:45 but a good natter was had. We were missing FGO that evening, where were you Bill?  Dale and I threw out a few calls on 145.500 and talked to a number of fairly close stations :

G4TBD – Steven, who was coming in on a 53 on 2m but sounding fine. We later switched to his repeater, GB3WB and signals were fantastic.

GW4REX – Phil from Chepstow, also a good signal 58 at least, and M6HCC from Bristol, all working well. We all moved to 5watts and contined our QSO for a good while.  GW8CRH tracked us down and called in for a quick natter, and the evening closed with a chat to Pete (RPB) about all things antennas.

All in all, this was a FIRST CLASS spot, and I am finding it hard not to drive up there again this evening and setup a 2m collinear. Great stuff, great spot, 12mins drive away 🙂

73

Took a quick trip up to Christchurch Hill, in Newport, over the top of St.Julians for the 2m CADARS Monday night net. As I was heading up there GWOFGO (Bill), 2W0OGY (Chris) and MW0RPB (Pete) were on the repeater GB3RT.

I set up shop using the mobile antenna on the truck, just down Catsash Road at location 1. I moved around a bit during the evening signals were pretty much 59+ for the repeater, heading over to location 2. We had quite a busy net, with GW8CRH (Ian) joining us, along with YAC (Ken), FNV (Dale) and RQM (Dave). Input signal reports were given and I could hear most, with the exception of Ken.

During the extended net, some 2+ hrs, the repeater had a funny few minutes, and we are yet to track down the issue. Perhaps overheating, or lack of input CTCSS on a transmission which might have caused it to get confused.

A good evening on the top of the hill 🙂

73

Took a quick trip up Twmbarlwm with Dale, to try out the new (to me, thanks Ken!) colinear x50 on the truck. Wow, it worked really well.  Just follow the track up to the car park, and carry on some 400yds, and it takes you to a slightly higher spot further on. See pic below…

We worked the following stations and had some great QSO’s :

G4TRA (Steve)
G4KVT (Jason)
G0IEZ (Paul)
M6HCC (Gary)
M0SPN (Steve)
G4NKT (Dave)
GW7RQM (Dave) via GB3RT
GW8CRH (Ian) via GB3RT

We put a number of calls out on 145.500 and had a number of stations come back to us. All extended qso’s were on 145.375, no local QRM to report on 2m at least. An extensive visit will have to be made with HF and some more UHF/VHF workings !

Great fun !

73

Took a trip a couple of miles north of Ebbw Vale (Mynydd Llangatwg), into the Brecons, to a spot some 1700+ft asl. Set up the HF 128ft L antenna, with a remote fibreglass pole at the far end. Also strapped my NR7900 to the pole to work some 2m/70cms.

A number of contacts were made on 80 and 40m :

DG150ZRS
G0JMZ
M0GIB
G4PIJ
M3ZDZ

Also had a QSO on GB3CF, the Markfield Leicester repeater, and spoke to Gary (G3SBF). The repeater started off as a 5/9, but dropped to 5/5 after a short while. The QSO was by all accounts was fine from Gary’s end.

I accessed a number of DSTAR repeaters just to get my aprs record stored.

No QRM at this location on HF or 2m/70cms. Quite flat and open when you are up there, with lay-bys to park in. The road is rather busy though.

All in all a good trip out.

73

I took a short drive down to the Magor wetlands last night, which is a couple of minutes drive from my house. There is a rough track with a number of large reens that run along side and branch off. The water table is very close to the surface, 12 inches from road to the surface in the reens at most. My location is shown in the map below, and I was only 8ft ASL according to the ICOM 7100 gps.

IO81nn

I set up a HF antenna, which was roughly 128 ft inverted L, running north/south. A fibreglass pole velcroed to the Landrover held up one end. I also taped my NR7900 (2m/70cm) antenna to this pole half way up, about 1m above the car body work. The other end of the L was held up by another fibreglass flag pole, some 90ft away. I used my small trailer to hold the other mast. The horizontal was about 20ft above the deck.

The SGC 237 did the business again and tuned it from 160M all the way up to 20m. I didn’t try any other bands at the time. The following stations were contacted in the net on 3.720.500, gw0fgo (59+), mw0rpb (59), mw0yac (58), mw6fnv (59+), gw7rqm (59+), gw0ozb (59+). We QSY’d around a few times due to some QRM. I missed the distant station that was on the net at the start as I was still getting set up, but it was great to hear GW0OZB (Andrew) for the first time.

Some ground wave / sky wave phasing was heard, which was a first for me. After the net ended around 8:40pm, some of us hopped down to 160m and worked on 1.938.000.

I tried adding a ground wire from the SGC into the water/reen but was unable to tune top band when I did this. I would probably need to adjust length of antenna. All other bands would tune with the additional ground plane.

After the ‘net’ ended on top band, I went back to a few stations calling CQ on 40m. F6ECS with my report being 5/7, and YU5VV giving me a 5/9.

I felt the spot would be hard to beat for some great HF’ing.  What with the water table, 400m to closest trees and lack of buildings around makes it a great spot. I was suffering from S8/9 noise on 80m but this could have just been conditions/static QRN. I will be heading down there with the analyser, setting up and doing some tests with a ground wire into the reen and without to see what impact it is having.

I also had a short QSO with Steve (M6STL) on 145.375 around 9:30pm who was coming in 5/4 from his handy at 5w indoors. Good stuff Steve and hope the home brew dipole/slimjim/jpole antenna construction goes well ! A couple of short QSO’s with MW6FNV on 145.375 as well, his station a 5/9.

I pulled the plugs around 10:30pm and headed home. I put a call into GB3RT as I was driving back up the track and I talked to MW0GUK (George) who wanted a radio check. He was sounding fine, although he dropped off the repeater around 10:40pm, perhaps a battery issue.

73

Dale and I took a drive up to Wentwood forest north of Magor, Newport. A small detour was made via the chip shop on the way. We tried to get to the SOTA point in Wentwood, but it is gated so only accessible by foot. One day we will have to lug some gear over there and try and get an activation.

The spot (see pic below) we chose was about 600 yards or so from a commercial mast which proved to be a nightmare. Much QRM was to be had on 2m, and made it impossible to use. The CADARS 2m net initially gathered on 145.375 at around 7:30pm but the QRM made it impossible. One minute I would hear Chris (2w0ogy) 5/7 then the QRM would wipe him totally with S9 noise.

So, we all moved over to GB3RT, the 70cms Fusion/FM repeater in Cwmbran, maintained and operated by CADARS. The usual banter was exchanged and the net ended somewhere around 8:30pm. The following stations partook in the net : 2w0ogy, gw0fgo, mw0yac, mw6mun, mw6fnv, mw6lga (myself).  We were running a portable callsign as we had placed the radial-less mobile NR7900 antenna from Diamond, on top of a 8m fibreglass pole and velcro’ed it to the landrover ladder. A barrel so239 connector was used in the antenna and a 6m patch cable was used to connect to the normal so239 fitting on the truck. Essentially an antenna on an extension cable. It seemed to work quite well, and quite a few 70cm and 2m repeaters were heard. A recording from a Sunderland repeater is below heard on 433.175.000 at 6:30pm. Such a repeater might be GB3TS but obviously these two chaps with Geordie accents could be on any other repeater from the RB07 band. If it was the Sunderland GB3TS repeater, then wow, that was some serious skip/lift !!!! Unfortunately we didn’t the signal long enough to get a ident. I’ll have to try and analyse the audio to see if a tone is stored in it, but I am not sure.

Analysis is in 🙂 indeed it is the Sunderland repeater GB3TS. Great stuff !

After the CADARS net ended, we put up an 8m length of cable and ran some HF. A couple of contacts were made into Italy and we even interrupted GW4BLE (Steve) from his DX chasing (sorry Steve).  A massive pile up was heard with people trying to get a Japan station but we were unsuccessful and he faded away in the space of 30 or so minutes.

We pulled all the plugs around 10:30pm and headed home.

73

Took a trip up to Machen mountain at approximately 1200ft ASL, and set up a HF vertical to try and make a couple of contacts. Met up with MW6FNV (Dale) and MW6TYD (Rich).

My setup consisted of a vertical (slightly sloping), 6m piece of 1.5mm conduite cable (multi-strand) connected to the 3/8 whip point on the truck, held up by an 8m fibreglass pole, cable tied to the roof rack ladder. This was fed by the SGC-237 coupler which was grounded out to the body of the car, no other radials or ground spikes were used. Rig was my trusty Icom 7100. The sgc would tune 160m right through to 4m no problem, 1:1 everywhere, amazing, quite amazing.  Worked Italy, USA and the UK.

TYD’s setup consisted of his new ATAS-120A and new Yaesu FT-857D. His first solo HF contact was made, and it was in the USA, just brilliant Rich. That setup really does work well !

Much fun (and food) was had, lots of chin wagging, and a couple of contacts made in the Autumn sunshine, great stuff indeed. Now to plan the next venture, next weekend anyone? 🙂

73