Propagation has always fascinated me, especially when people go out early and work amazing distances with limited equipment.
One person, and I admit I'm a bit of a fanboy, is Salty Walt Hudson from the Costal Waves and Wires Youtube channel. Such a nice guy, and his video exploits are always entertaining as well as educational.
The location
I recently went to the south coast ok the UK at Paignton in Devon. I don't like traffic jams so set off early (1:30am) and had planned to activate the POTA location GB-0074 Slapton Ley National Nature Reserve and perform a little experiment as per one of Walts early morning jaunts.
I arrived there about 7:30am, parked up in the carpark, which sits right next to the beach. Slapton Ley is a stone beach, as is common along the south coast.
The equipment
For this we need to put ourselves on a level playing field with Walt. So here is the List of equipment I used.
Xeigu G90.
MC750 vertical quarter wave antenna with 4 counterpoise wires.
8ah LIFEPO4 battery.
Mini 8 Coax 10M.
plastic bucket to put everything in and act as an activating station.
Had i know the beach was going to be so close to the carpark i would have also packed my camping chair, but instead i used the frost windscreen cover for my car as it was in the boot.
The Activation
After scrambling down a short bank (couldn't be bothered to walk to the more easily accessible part) I walked across the stony beach to the waters edge.
I set my antenna up and, as per Walt, and made sure one my counterpoise wires touched the salt water of English Channel (as close as i could get to the Atlantic)
I set the G90 up on the upturned bucked, and after getting the SWR down to about 1.2, sat down on my "blanket". After spotting myself on the POTA website I began to call CQ on 20M.
I'd picked a bad day to activate, the bands were dead, a common occurrence of late, but there was almost zero noise, so quiet I had to check to see if my volume control was actually turned up.
I called CQ again and a polish station contacted me 58 to his 59, promising. Then a flurry of Poland, Germany, France and a Norwegian Park to Park. for the next 20 minutes a steady flow of contacts from the farthest parts of Europe flowed in.
As the contacts thinned out to a drip every couple of minutes I decided to switch to 40m and added the coil to the vertical. Not as Ideal as my EFHW but there was no changing the parameters of the experiment.
By the time I switched to 40 the tide had gone out, my counterpoise wire now meters from touching the water.
Again a steady stream of UK and northern European stations.
Even though the conditions were dire, I was still happy with the haul of 48 contacts in 62 minutes
After an hour I called it a day. After 7 hours in the car, I was ready for some breakfast.
I packed up, sat on the beach and finished my coffee, taking in the beautiful location I had picked to Activate.
Conclusion
Did I get DX like Walt ? No.
Did I get to contact people all over Europe, equally enthusiastic about the brilliant hobby we share? Definately.
Did I have fun? Yes
I think 2 out of 3 is a great result and, whatever equipment you have, however much power you use, getting out and doing POTA, BOTA or just activating in nature is a brilliant way to recharge your batteries and is great for your mental health. I know its saved my sanity many a time.
Maybe Walt is just magic, maybe his closer proximity to the equator gives him a totally different propagation to in the UK. Maybe another experiment on the beach during the grey line is required :)
Until next time,
73's
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