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Camb-Hams DX Blog

The countdown has started! This week sees the group loading up ready for Friday’s start on the journey to Harris.

Several of the team members have been putting in huge amounts of preparatory work: Gavin M1BXF and Bob G1SAA have built and tested a Spiderbeam, which will be used on 20m, 15m and 10m. It has now been fine-tuned, and has an excellent SWR in each part of the three bands that we aim to be using. Robert M0VFC and Geoff G0DDX have been finishing the filters. The T-shirts have been printed. Here at HUN Towers the Hustler 6BTV six band vertical that is my main HF antenna has been labelled and dismantled ready for loading, and generally things are being pulled together in one place. But there seem to be boxes of stuff everywhere – I hope ‘VFC has a big enough car! I’ve been busy with the laminator – there are Great Circle DX maps centred on Harris; WAB maps of the island (Thanks to the sterling efforts of Dave M0VMC); and lists of frequencies used for IOTA and WAB. We seem to be a lot more organised than last year.

20m 15m 10m

(Spiderbeam plots for 20m / 15m & 10m)

Tomorrow we’re getting together for a final run through – then on Tuesday we pack the trailer.

The plan is that Bob, Geoff and Gavin will head off with the trailer early on Friday morning, around 6am with myself and Robert following a little later in the day. First stop will be Gavin’s mum’s QTH at Helensburgh near Glasgow. We’ll be kipping there and meeting up with some of the Scottish contingent for dinner on the Friday. It will be an early start on Saturday – we plan to leave there at 3.00am; we have to get to the ferry terminal on Skye for a 9.40am sailing! Unfortunately we can’t get into the cottage until 4.00pm, so don’t expect to hear much from us on Saturday although some of the team will try and participate in GlobalSET. Once into the cottage it will be a race to get some aerials up, and hope to have some sort of operation going by the evening.

So the question is – “Will I need more than one pair of pants”?

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