Showing posts with label Portable. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Portable. Show all posts

Monday, 27 August 2012

Portable in Devon

The summer here in the UK may have been the home of the Olympics and Paralympics, in fact I’ve just worked 2O12L, the special event station for the Paralympics. But one thing over everything else has dominated every Englishman's mind. Just exactly how wet and miserable has the summer been. As I write this it is chucking it down again and the temperature is sliding towards ‘Autumn’. I can confirm that not all the UK is under water, all the time.

That said I have had a lovely week in a small village in Devon called Instow. We rented a small house opposite the beach and did the usual things with the kids. Sand castles, ice creams and cream teas as well as a bit of body boarding (for the kids, not me. I didn’t manage to get a surf board out but that's probably a good thing). I did manage to sneak in my FT817 and Prowhip antennas fishing rod antenna into the car before the XYL spotted it.

Not many contacts to add into the log but it was nice to hit a US special event station W9IMS in Indianapolis with just a couple of watts. Perhaps it was the overly relaxed operating position.

 IMAG0188

Monday, 23 July 2012

A new addition to the shack

I seem to suffer with the same addiction that so many other hams have. One hand held is just not enough.

It was my birthday the other day and seeing as I'm officially really old according to my kids I thought I could treat myself to a 2m hand held that I could happily take with me when I'm out on my mountain bike (Its full suspension, which goes with my old age, apparently!). I've never been too keen on taking the excellent Yaesu VX8-G that is my primary summit radio. I don't regularly come off but I wouldn't want to come off with that in a back pack. So like many others a Baofeng UV5 was ordered through eBay. After a 3 week wait it landed on my doorstep, out of the XYL's view and was quickly moved into the garage retreat.

The specs are well known and whilst you shouldn't expect too much for 30 quid I was quiet surprised when I sneaked it into the car when we had a trip to Mirehouse at the weekend. Even with the short and doubtful antenna I got a good signal report from M0YDH on Robinson from Keswick.

Now then what about one for 4m?