RobL's world of wonder

What to write about this month?!

Probably a bit of a ramble this time around, there being no specific agenda or subject but in the best traditions of contributions to any such publication (with all due respect to the editor) including editorials it can be good to ‘ragchew’.
 
The bands have been a little quiet lately but there is still no shortage of interest if you are lucky enough to be looking in the right place at the right time.  A few weeks ago I was SWL at home late one evening listening to 40 metres and a station in Iceland was putting out a tremendous signal but with a significant pile up trying to work him.  The temptation to run outside and fire the rig up in the car (flat dweller with no workable HF antenna at home) was tremendous but resisted due to the lateness of the hour (and the ambient temperature!).  I was therefore somewhat pleased a few days later to be tuning around 20 metres one morning when up popped the same station in Reykjavik, Iceland!  It was only sensible of course to put out a call and lo and behold a reasonable length conversation followed, r5s7 each way!!
 
2 metres has had its moments as well with March seeing some interesting ‘lifts’ with various French stations being audible, contact possible in some instances to further flung UK repeaters and it was good to hear a station north of Exeter working SSB well into Europe, a decent beam and quite a bit of power required no doubt but it just shows what can be done with the effort and dedication.
 
Talking of 2 metres we recently went away camping in Dorset and the first thing of particular note was how quiet the local repeaters are and how many people are using simplex, the FM calling channel was particularly busy at any time of day too.  There is bound to be a degree of reticence in some quarters due to the inherently limited range of VHF but for local chats/ragchews/technical tests doesn’t it make sense?  I’ll leave that thought with you!