Badgers and barbecues
I put my HF hexbeam antenna up to full height for the weekend because it promised to be a busier than usual SOTA day on Saturday. While the main aim of a lot of the activators was to contact one another, there was plenty of space for the usual chasing and I made ten contacts (and missed making a few more). Most interesting for me were a couple of contacts with a group on a summit in the Urals. It turned out they were going for a large number of contacts, and had three operators on the summit, with two active and the third enjoying the scenery at any one time.. They were sending at at least twice the speed I usually use, but I was able to piece together enough detail by listening to several previous contacts before I tried calling them myself. I had to crank my morse sending up a few notches to get noticed...
On Saturday evening we had a barbecue up on the old gravel level. The food did get slightly burned, but it was an enjoyable meal, and not too complicated to organise. A better barbecue would help, I guess, but we'll worry about that another year...
On Sunday morning we went for a bit of a walk down the hill. Going for walks is one of the things we used to do that fell victim to the lockdown (and to our consequent dropping out of Pokémon Go and Wizards Unite), and it was good to get out on foot again.
I lowered the hexbeam mast on Monday afternoon. There was a radio club meeting via Webex on Monday evening.
I've resumed work on the tiered beds between the new levels, but the weather's been dry, and the ground is a little harder than it was, so it's taken a bit more effort. Yesterday evening Cat came along to make work more complicated supervise. This time I did manage to keep her paws out of the concrete, though, so I'll call that a win. The garden has been suffering somewhat from other animals, primarily the badgers who trash the lawn, and the deer who nibble their way around the flowerbeds. I guess that's one of the hazards that comes with having a wood behind the back garden.
On Saturday evening we had a barbecue up on the old gravel level. The food did get slightly burned, but it was an enjoyable meal, and not too complicated to organise. A better barbecue would help, I guess, but we'll worry about that another year...
On Sunday morning we went for a bit of a walk down the hill. Going for walks is one of the things we used to do that fell victim to the lockdown (and to our consequent dropping out of Pokémon Go and Wizards Unite), and it was good to get out on foot again.
I lowered the hexbeam mast on Monday afternoon. There was a radio club meeting via Webex on Monday evening.
I've resumed work on the tiered beds between the new levels, but the weather's been dry, and the ground is a little harder than it was, so it's taken a bit more effort. Yesterday evening Cat came along to make work more complicated supervise. This time I did manage to keep her paws out of the concrete, though, so I'll call that a win. The garden has been suffering somewhat from other animals, primarily the badgers who trash the lawn, and the deer who nibble their way around the flowerbeds. I guess that's one of the hazards that comes with having a wood behind the back garden.