After my adventure in New Zealand last year it was back to the home station. I don’t have a permanent tower at the moment so the tribander was put up field-day style with ‘gin pole’ (falling derrick) and block-and-tackle. The high K index and consequential poor conditions made me wonder if it was worth it, but ‘Beru’ has always been special and yes I enjoyed it.

An unavoidable family visit late on Saturday afternoon lost me two hours and, I suspect, many VEs. I felt their numbers were down overall, no doubt put off by the conditions. Got 75 minutes’ sleep overnight and in the end I spent about 20 hours in the chair. It was looking like I’d have a last hour with no QSOs at all just endless CQing and searching, but ZD7BG saved the day by calling me on 10m with four minutes to go. We then promptly went to 15m, unfortunately the onward move to 20m didn’t work out but it was a nice way to finish.

 BAND   QSO DUP DXC  HQ  POINTS BONUS  AVG
——————————————–
   80    25   0  10   7     125   400 21.00
   40    52   0  20   7     260   800 20.38
   20    91   1  27  12     455  1180 17.97
   15    37   1  18   8     185   680 23.38
   10    13   0   9   2      65   260 25.00
——————————————–
TOTAL   218   2  84  36    1090  3320 20.23
============================================
            TOTAL SCORE : 4 410

K3+Acom 2000A
K2+KPA500
Tet tribander up 40ft
15m loop
20m loop
40m elevated vertical
80m tee up 33ft
Beverage on Ground
Win-Test

73 Dave G4BUO