This Weekend, 11th May, The LSWC put on a Special Event Station at Ellis Mill, GB5EM, for Mills on the Air. This is an annul event for the club each year and again the weather was on our side.

Les G1LQB and Steve M5ZZZ Loaded up the equipment on the Friday afternoon ready for a 9.30 start on the Saturday morning.

Setting up

At 9am Saturday morning and Steve, Les, Stephen M5SJM & Andy 2E0OYQ arrived at Ellis Mill in Lincoln ready to set up. As soon as the gates were unlocked the Gap Eagle was setup and the FT1000 MK5 Field and the IC910 were connected ready to go. This gave us coverage of most of the HF band and also 2m / 70cm using a simple X30 Collinear. With the Shelter put up it was now possible to see the displays of the radios and get GB5EM on the air.

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GB5EM on the Air

Unfortunately after only getting a few very local contacts, get poor reports back, it was found that there was a fault with the Gap Eagle. It was assumed that the capacitor in the top of the antenna had failed which will be investigated further back at the shack.

By this time Alistair M0TEF & Keith G0RQQ had arrived and we soon had up in the air a 40m Dipole which Alistair had in his car. This worked well and proved it was definatly the antenna and not the radio that was originally at fault.

We later swapped this for one of the clubs Fan dipoles so we could try some other bands.

After all this Les treated us all to a bacon butty for lunch which filled us up.

After operating for most of the afternoon, by 3.30pm we had gathered a few contacts on 2m FM, reaching as far as a services a few miles outside Birmingham to a SOTA activation on Blackstone Edge IO83xp in the Pennines. Where they were only using a mobile antenna on a mount sat on the rock behind them.

HF also got a number of contacts for the day reaching the Orkney Islands and also a number of club members who had called into the station.

It may not have been the busiest of days but overall it was a well enjoyed day for those who attended.