A Trio to Forget, Atleast Until The Next Day

I'm not one to weave a tale of woe, but like a football match, this activation was definitely a game of two halves. 

Day 1

5th of July, 2025.   After filling my face with a nicely stuffed bacon sandwich and a large mug of coffee i perused the Bunker base for places to activate.  It was a  beautifully sunny day, and very hot, so somewhere that didn't involve too much walking was a must.

I found a 3'fer, with a layby and trees, what could be more perfect. Today the FT710 would be my weapon of choice.

B/G-1880 RAF Ludford Magna Cold War storage bunker
B/G-1881 RAF Ludford Magna WW2 bomb storage bunker
B/G-2321 RAF Ludford Magna Thor Launch Control Bunker

I packed the car up, remembering my coax joiner this time, and set off on the short journey to my destination. 

Locations either never quite live up to their expectations or far exceed them. In this case the trees, that looked so promising on google maps, were definitely a tad on the short side. Good job i had my trusty pole with me. 

I found a nice broken branch on the tree to hook my 40m endfed over and laid out the wire along the ground. Inserting the ground spike in the verge was a no go. The old runway access roads and layby made this an impossibility, but no loss, I just attached the wire to the pole and hoisted it aloft, laying it against some bushes, the downward pressure of the wire holding it in place. 

Coax and battery attached to the FT710 and spotted i began to call CQ. It was only a few seconds before my mate Nick (2E0NAQ) came booming in 59. behind was a small pileup i had to work my way through. Today was going to be a good day. 

Eleven contacts in and silence, the radio was dead. I QRT'd my spot and packed up and went home. Was it the radio or the battery, please be the battery. 

On arriving home i unpacked the car. I had left my pole laying upright against the tree (that wont be there when i go back tomorrow, damn idiot). It was the battery, It couldn't have been more dead if it tried, relief. 

Tomorrow i will go back to complete the activation. 

Day 2

2 batteries + the g90 in reserve and off i set. Today could not be more different if it tried. Lots of rain and abysmal propagation, but my determination had no bounds, bring it on.


Arriving back at the location, some kind soul had put the pole down and laid it in the long grass. There are nice people out there still. 

After repeating the antenna setup from the previous day, in the rain, soaking wet, I poured myself a coffee and sat back in the car. The rain stopped, typical.

Todays contacts, due to the propagation, were a totally different mix. Yesterdays mainly English based contacts were now replaced by the far reaches of the British isles and northern Europe. 30 minutes later, 19 contacts in the bag, Manuel (EA4GU) in Spain providing the final contact on 20m, the activation was compete with 30 in total. 

Score :  Nick 3 - bad times 0

73's

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