Back in August 2006, I relocated to north east Scotland, Moray
to be precise. I now live just outside of Elgin
in a small village. The old QTH was in Luton, Bedfordshire. Do I miss
Luton and all of the hustle and bustle of living in a big town? No, the only
thing about Luton I miss is the hill that I used to live on, all 166mtrs of
it! Oh, and the local shops, the local shop is now the best part of three
miles away. The new QTH is all of 60mtrs asl, still you can't have everything.
I used to keep in touch with my old club members and Derek G7OXJ
now sadly a "silent key" via HF and my trusty old Yaesu FT900cat
and a half size G5RV on 40mtrs, Although the "shack" is now in the
kitchen, very inconvenient, except for when I need a coffee! ( I am no longer
in the kitchen when I am on HF and can now write up the log onto the pc as
I make the contacts )Contacts are normally in the region of 59 both ways.
I have had a slight problem with the 5RV, the feeder broke away from the soldered
on connector in the high winds that we have had up here recently, It has now
been fixed and I have cable tied the feeder to the insulator to try to prevent
this happening in the future.
.....................................Vhf
site on top of a hill facing the moray firth, coast 2 miles away...................................Some
of the local competition ( Military installation )
As you can see from the pictures the weather at the
moment is nothing short of great, pictures taken today, 25/11/06. It gets
dark earlier than it did down south, but in the summer months it stays light
longer, so I guess its a swings or roundabouts type of thing!
Apart from the HF side of things I am also active on
2mtrs and APRS, (and email) I'm one of only about five stations active on
aprs, so if you see me on the map, send a message!
I also use Echolink, and have a NoV which has enabled
me to set up a "Link"
............Castle's on the
air, anyone?..........................................................................................Where
would my 50watts end up through this?
Well it's now January 18th 2007, Happy new year everyone.
The spate of storms over Christmas and the new year
didn't cause me too many problems, the 1/2 size G5RV weathered it out with
no damage, but the home brew vertical broke, not a problem as I couldn't get
it to tune up anyway. It was made from 30' of 450 ohm feeder, 3' of wire on
one side and 33' of wire on the other side and was ment to tune up on 3.5-21Mhz.
I tried to tune it on 7Mhz and had no joy, the tuner is an MFJ 901B, perhaps
its not beefy enough, but works very well with the 1/2 size. The feeder has
now been made into a couple of J-poles for 144Mhz which work very well with
a low SWR, One for myself and the other for a local Amateur to use for aprs,
I might have another go at the vertical later on in the year.
The weather the last few days has been calm and sunny
with mostly blue sky and very few clouds and the temp has been about 8 degees,
this morning however there is snow on the local hills, so perhaps we will
get some later on, I have been told that our road (main) has been closed before
because of snow, best make sure that there's beer in the fridge!
Elgin is located between Inverness to the west, 35
miles, and Aberdeen to the east, 50 miles. I am about 9 miles from the Moray
firth coast where you can see dolphins, seals and various types of sea birds.
With small coastal villages like Findhorn, Burghead and Hopeman
with its unspoilt silver sanded beaches, Between Findhorn and Burghead there
is a long sweeping bay where the allies practiced for the D-day invasion of
Normandy, You can still see the pillboxes and tank traps, although the pillboxes
have now slid down the dunes and the tank traps have toppled over.
....................................................................Pillbox
and Tank Traps...................................................................................................Gunners
View?
Just a bit further along the coast to the east is Lossiemouth
and the RAF fast jet base there, which is home to the Tornado fighter bomber.
.....................................................Hopeman
east beach..............................................................................................................Tornado.............................
..........................................................New
years day at VHF site..............................................................................................Sunset
at QTH
It is now April 18th 2007, not much has changed, I am still
active on 40mtrs and in contact with various club members, when the conditions
allow, we all know what 40mtrs is like! I have managed to have a couple of
contacts into the USA on 20mtrs. The vertical that I use for 2mtrs, a diamond
vx30 has now been moved from the loft to outside on top of a pole. I now hear
a few more stations but in general 2mtrs is very quiet. I am in the process
of cleaning up an old Jaybeam 10 element yagi for 2mtrs with a view to using
it on ssb, perhaps on the activity night. This beam is wide spaced and the
boom is 16 feet long, made in the 1970's and thats about all I know about
it, any info greatfully received.
May 5th, After a week of good weather, it's now taken a turn
for the worse and is blowing a gale, but still sunny, very strong winds with
stronger gusts. The soil from the local farmers field is being blown off the
fields. The soil here is very sandy. No real damage to the antennas, the 1/2
size G5RV was down anyway so no problems there, but the pole that the vertical
for 2 & 70 (and TV antenna) is on has a bend in it now and will need to
be replaced/shortened.
...................................................................................................................I'm
still getting dust and sand out of everywhere!
June 15th, not much to report, Backpackers 144Mhz contest was
quiet, or at least here it was, had a few contacts with the kenwood and five
element beam.
HF, 40mtrs is still very noisy, and causes problems for the
Sunday sched. I have managed to contact Bob M0WRT on 40mtrs during the week,
some days better than others but still worth the effort.
It is now getting dark much later, or maybe a better description
would be less light, between 23:00 and 00:00hrs and light again by around
03:30hrs.
Picture taken 23:49 14/06/07
July 29th, NFD has come and gone, went south for the weekend
although not for the NFD, so did not manage to work any stations, next year!
Wx has not been too bad, days of rain, days of sunshine, but in general it
has not been the best of summers. So, if you can't get out, there is the radio!
40mtrs still not the best although contact with club members has got easier.
I said earlier in this "letter" that I run this website as my input
to the club and have been enjoyed doing it, but there is very little input
or responce from the club so I think it is time to look for a new club, local
to my new qth.
October 19th, Well it's been a while since I updated this
page, partly because I lost the internet connection, problems with my isp,
and partly to do with the little input I get from the club, hence the split
from the original website, which I still run, but I am now only putting into
it what I get from the club members, I have been promised input for the website,
but we shall have to wait and see.
Well Summer has left us now, not that we had much of one,
lots of rain, both here and down south, no flooding here though! and winter
is now approaching again. wx here the last few days has been, well almost
like the summer days we should of had, blue sky, sunshine and not too bad
at all for this time of year.
Radio, well not been too active lately, had problems with
the 1/2 size G5RV, feeder has become waterlogged, got an idea for that though.
Made a 40mtr dipole, which is working very well, made one for 80mtrs too,
now looking for the right spot to put it in and then should be active on that
band too.
November 12th, Now made the split from the club. At the moment
I am not looking for a new one, committee's get in the way! Since handing
in my resignation to the club, I have had one member of the committee demand
that I hand over the passwords etc for this website, why? I do not know, I
had very little from the club for the website, the newsletter, a link and
an article, not bad for two years! I am now running the website as a non club
one! Good luck to Varc.
Recent storms/high winds over the 8-9th caused no damage
here, getting colder now although the wx is good enough for the time of year,
plenty of sunshine. The nights are getting longer now, gone are the days when
it was still light at almost midnight!
January 6th 2008, Well Christmas has
come and gone and we are now into 2008, I hope everyone had a good time over
the Christmas period. Christmas day here was like a summers day, not as warm,
but sunny and a cloudless sky, not bad for this time of year.
..........................................pic
taken Chrismas day
The Snowman Rally
February 16th.
Early start today, I'm off to the snowman rally, with 2m1hle
to help out with the comms. On our way along the A96 to Inverness we are passed
by one of the competitors going at a great rate of knots! he passed us as
we were about to drop down a bit of a hill to a roundabout on the outskirts
of Forres. The car a metro 6r4, looked and sounded impressive with flames
coming from the exhaust as he went down the gearbox, over the roundabout and
away it went, we could hear it in the distance, we didn't see it again untill
we passed it later, sat at the side of the road with it's hazzard lights on!
( he made it to the rally )
The rally started at Scotsburn, near Alness, the weather was
great, clear blue sky, sunny albeit cold. The rally had over a hundred competitors
and about 20,000 spectators. Later on we set up the radio to work as a crossband
repeater so other amateurs in a poor location would be able to get their messages
back to the control room at Inverness. All in all not a bad day out.
2010
05/02/2010. Well the big freeze over December and into January
is now over. The snow started on the 18th of December and we were hoping that
it stayed for Christmas, which would make my first white Christmas in 20+
years, and did it stay, yes, for over three weeks! The above image was taken
by nasa and shows the whole of the uk covered in snow, this was to cause "chaos"
across the country.
The below images show what my bit of Scotland looked like during
the big freeze.
Looking towards Rothes..................................................................................................
Looking towards Elgin.
..
Well it's not all bad, as I get sunsets such as this one above,
taken a few days ago on the 10th of Feb at 17:14hrs
16/02/2010 Tuesday, woke to see snow on the ground! just a couple
of inches and it has been snowing/sleeting on and off during the day, can
see patches of grass now so seems to be more rain than snow as it seems to
be melting. :-)
