It was a fairly pleasant day on the afternoon of September 28 and we weren’t staying too far from the coast so decided to try a portable radio session. We didn’t have the luxury of a rental car on Benbecular so we had to haul the gear ourselves.

Unfortunately as has been the case for most of the time in Scotland, as you’ll see from the photos, I couldn’t get as close to the coast as I would have liked. We walked about 15-20 minutes through a field owned by the B&B where we were staying in Balivanich and reached the coast. We walked some distance to try and find a better vantage point, but I wanted to be up and running fairly quickly before it got dark.

We set up the Buddipole against a gate using the elastic straps and some basic guying and I was on air by about 16:00 UTC. I set up on 10 metres and only made several contacts before packing up. I also worked one of the contacts Wolf CU/DH2IW again on 10 metres later on the trip from Castlebay, on the Isle of Barra.

Jonathan portable in Balivanich, Isle of Benbecula

Jonathan portable in Balivanich, Isle of Benbecula