Piggot’s Bottom - G0RIF/p
 Buddistick mount |
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Piggot’s Bottom, approximately 52° 42′ 56″ north, 1° 54′ 7″ west. Locator square IO92BR. This is where I setup the Buddistick for a bit of 17m operating. Just don’t ask me to find it again!
Let me explain. I set out to operate from a spot I’ve used before not far from home. The problem was that today those playing fields were in use and the small carpark was full. This meant I had to find another spot to operate from. I set off with no particular destination in mind and after driving around for some 20 minutes I found myself at Piggot’s Bottom, a small wood about 6 or 7 miles northwest of Lichfield. I found the spot entirely by chance and will have to pore over a map in order to ever find it again. |
As you can see from the pictures of todays outing (see my Portable Amateur Radio gallery) the spot I chose is in a lovely little clearing set into a corner of the wood. Using the supplied Buddistick mount plus the vertical antenna clamp in my ‘Deluxe’ package I attached the antenna to the rear hatch on the car (see picture on this page and linked gallery page). This placed the feedpoint about 6ft above the ground. The elevated radial wire was taken away horizontally and tied-off to a convenient tree. This tuned up great on 17m with SWR < 1.2:1 across the SSB portion of the band.
Conditions weren’t great on 17m today but there was decent propagation down into the Mediterranean region with SV9CVY (Mike on the island of Crete) loud at 59+ runnning a good pile-up of mostly EU stations with a few US stations. I eventually got through the pile and got a good 59 report. I was pleased to make the contact because he did seem to have lots of loud stations calling him and it took a bit of persistence and some guile to get the contact.
I also got good reports from 9H1DE (Roly in Malta who was 59 with me) who gave me 58, 9A0CI (Fred on EU-090) who gave me 58, 1B1AB (Soyer in Turkish North Cyprus) who gave me 59 and Flavio & Marco (IW0HKH and IW0GEQ), both in Rome who gave me 55 and 57 respectively.
The catch of the day though was HV0A (Francesco) in the Vatican City. I was tuning across the band as he was calling CQ (59+) and I got him on the second call. It wasn’t too long before he was buried under a huge pile-up as more and more stations all tried for a contact, by which time I was smiling broadly with him already in my log. This was my second contact with HV0A having previously also working him on 20m SSB for what was at that time my 100th country. The QSL card for that contact is on the QSL Europe gallery page.
It was an enjoyable few hours on 17m and another good performance from the Buddistick antenna which continues to impress. I will certainly find my way back to Piggot’s Bottom to operate from there again.