Activity on the hills

A rare free weekend has appeared in my schedule, so this is a good chance to go up to a high point to play some radio, and I have a few high points around me including the famous Tan Hill on the Cumbria border, inspiration for this has come from Mike M0XMX, one of his recent videos has him operating 2-meters FM and SSB from a high point near to him and he did very well, especially considering there's a lot of people out there who seem to think that 2-meters is dead, all one has to really do is pick up that mic and press the button, and if you're high up it's even better.

So I've been having a survey of high points around me that I can access with a vehicle, Tan Hill being one of them, Sutton Bank being another though there doesn't appear to be anywhere up there I can pull in at the side of the road, there is the visitor's centre up there but that is run by the North York Moors National Park and I doubt they'd be happy with me setting up 2-meter antennas in their car park, though I do keep a copy of my Amateur radio licence in the car at all times in case anyone asks any "awkward" questions.

So I'll do all the radio playing Sunday, as this is the best time for it, Saturday I will give my groudplane antenna a test on a high point close by, this will be after shortening the coaxial cable feeding it because this feeder is RG58 and is lossy on 2-meters if it's fed by any considerable length run, this antenna needs a test because it has not been used in a while, was damaged during the QTH move and subsequently repaired, it will technically be its first time back on the air after that awful man that was my neighbour at the old QTH decided to be intolerant of my hobby without justification, now I'm all for people asking me to stop my Amateur radio and 11-meter activities if they're causing problems but not if they're just doing it because it just simply happened to be out of the way, and my hilltop activities don't usually get me into too much trouble.

I hope to spend most of the day up on the hills on Sunday once I find a place to go, and if the weather stays good, and will be operating 2-meters FM, pending tests on the groundplane antenna as well, if not the dipole will be used instead.

73 de 2E0EIJ