Kirkibost Pier Great Bernera
Having gone to the trouble of bringing my HF amateur radio gear on our Scotland Western Isles trip, my aim was to get in a portable session from each of the isles we visited. It was hard work at times hauling the Yaesu FT857, the 7Ah battery, the trickle charger and Buddipole antenna, but it was in a backpack which has wheels and an extendable handle so it wasn’t too challenging.
As has been the case with a lot of places in Scotland, I found it challenging to find waterside locations where I could get close to the water on this trip due to sea walls etc. Another frustration with my portable set ups on the trip, other than on Mull, was that I decided, in the interests of weight etc. to leave my MFJ tuner behind making changes of band difficult in the field.
On the morning of September 25, we decided to try and find a good location to set up in the morning before departing from Lewis to Harris in the afternoon after returning our rental car. The weather was drizzly and windy but we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity since we had the luxury of a car where the radio and battery could be easily kept dry.
We decided to drive out towards Great Bernera located on the West Coast of Lewis which is located beyond the
Buddipole set up at Kirkibost Pier
Callanish Stones. After driving around for a while trying to find somewhere we would get close to the water we came across the Kirkibost Pier. This looked a good location where we could set up the Buddipole antenna close to the water.
The antenna set up was a bit challenging due to the wind and because it was difficult to put the tent pegs into the ground for the Buddipole guying kit, but we eventually got there. We were up and running at around 10:00 UTC, which was later than intended. The antenna was set up on 20m with Europe booming in, which of course is not exactly a rare event in this part of the world. I made two contacts into Italy and Spain and then went QRT not hearing much else on the band.
Disappointing after the effort taken in finding the location etc. but the weather was poor and we had a rental car to return to Stornoway.
