WWFF Activation Durham Coast GFF-107

August 11, 2015

I’ve got to admire Carl 2E0HPI’s enthusiasm for portable operation. We finished our activation of Cringle Moor, North Yorkshire at around 09:30 UTC and were ready to do the next one the same day.

We arranged to meet again at around 16:30 local time at my hotel in Hartlepool and the plan was to activate a flora and fauna site on the Durham coast which is park reference GFF-107. We arrived at the location and walked about 10 minutes from the car. The location was at the top of a cliff a short distance from the North Sea and the weather was fantastic.

Carl set up the antenna and we were QRV shortly after 16:00 UTC. We went directly to 20 metres and had a contact with Neil M6LND not far away in Sunderland. We then got a good run happening on 20 metres with many stations worked in locations including Russia, Spain, Latvia, Belarus, Hungary, Romania, Portugal, France and Belgium.

Carl was very surprised with some of the short skip on 20 metres when we were called by MW0RLJ who was booming in from South Wales and also receiving us 5/9+. We also spoke with EI3KE in Southern Ireland and I was surprised to hear from my friend Marc F8DRA who we stayed with in Normandy in March this year. He could hardly hear us, but we were receiving him 5/8.

The activation went well and I exceeded the number of contacts needed with about 50 contacts. Most of these contacts were on 20 meters but we moved to 40 metres at around 17:00 UTC for the final 12 contacts.

A surprise contact was with Bob G4VCJ who came back to me when I called CQ on 2m simplex on 145.500. I was somewhat surprised because my Baofeng handheld never gets used in VK6. Bob even drove down to say hello which was great.

We packed up at around 18:30 UTC after an enjoyable day with plenty of radio.