RaDAR Rally in spring comes just after the clocks go forward, bringing welcome light into the afternoon and evening, and while it can’t necessarily promise warmth all day long, skies are blue and all the signs of the new year are in the air.

RaDAR Rally in autumn has a different feeling.

Nevertheless, it’s RaDAR Rally weekend again, so a four hour hike and some amateur radio was on the cards with or without the fog. For this event I chose Stoborough Heath and neighbouring Hartland Moor, on the Isle of Purbeck, as a good spot for a circular walk with enough space for some antennas too.

Having won both of our previous events, I wanted to up our challenge level this time. I decided we would only work QRP, with a maximum of 10 Watts output power on SSB. (This may or may not have been a shameless excuse to get the IC-705 out again.) QRP meant that the 40m band would be our best shot at contacts, and that meant the JPC-12 antenna, which I’d got down to a two-minute setup and pack up time on previous rallies, wouldn’t do the job. We’d use the inverted-V dipole instead, which adds a bit more handicap with the setup time. Finally, being a November event, the available daylight meant I aimed for a 1000-1400 run, meaning we’d sacrifice a few minutes for a lunch stop as well.

I planned six activation spots, but in the end the four hours flew by, and we only ended up with five spots in the log before our time ran out.

For the full detail, read on!

Spot 1: IO80xq01 (1010-1030Z)

From the lay-by, we headed up the hill onto Stoborough Heath, where on clear days there’s a nice view over Poole Harbour to the north. Sadly this morning there was a view of maybe 100 metres in front of your face, everything else being beyond the render distance. So we headed down the other side of the hill and turned right into an open patch of grass, our first activation spot of the day. The antenna went up pretty quickly and we got on the air, starting with a bit of hunting. I saw a spot of GB1POPPY, and it being Rememberance Sunday tomorrow, decided we’d make them our first contact of the day, followed by another couple of bunker activators.

Once we called CQ, the contacts came quickly, including the International Shortwave League MX1SWL, and Tomas MM/LY3X/P for a park-to-park. I made sure to get at least 10 in the log for the POTA activation, as this would be our only stop of the day in Stoborough Heath, but after 20 minutes and 14 QSOs it was time for us to pack down and head on to Hartland Moor for the rest of the rally.

Spot 2: IO80xq11 (1100-1120Z)

Our activation from the second spot of the day produced a bit more drama. After five minutes of calling with no response, I noticed the power output indicator on the rig was a bit down, and bringing up the rest of the meters immediately showed the problem: extremely high SWR. If the power output had been really far down and some kind of warning light appeared like on some of my other rigs, I’d had spotted it earlier, but as I’ve found before the IC-705 will happily put 5W into absolutely nothing.

A quick check of the antenna revealed an air gap where a croc clip used to be. The SOTAbeams Band Hopper antennas use croc clips to join the extra antenna sections together for each band, so I had one side of the antenna a proper length for the 40m band, and the other end at half that. The rig was not happy. Luckily, there was enough free wire to strip a bit back with my penknife, and clip the remaining croc clip onto that, and we were quickly back on the air.

Spot 3: IO80xq30 (1155-1210Z)

The route to spot 3, and the activation itself, were uneventful. Another kilometer walked and another 12 contacts in the log!

Spot 4: IO80xp39 (1240-1255Z)

Another kilometre down the road, spot 4 was also our lunch spot.

Eight contacts and two sandwiches later, we were off again. The sun was peeking through the fog at last, providing some hope of clearer conditions to come.

Spot 5: IO80xp18 (1340-1400Z)

By the time we reached spot number five, the sun had indeed burned off the fog, and blue skies lurked behind the clouds. We realised at this point that there wasn’t going to be a spot number six today—we had only half an hour left, and still had to activate spot five first.

We dodged the cow pats and set the antenna up again, getting another ten contacts in the log, including Dave G0FVH from the club, Alex GM5ALX from the internet, and another special event station in a park, GB100TL, to round off the contacts.

The mist continued to dissipate on the walk back to the car, past the spot six that wasn’t to be, giving us a view of Corfe Castle across the valley to the south to complete the day.

If my RaDAR Rally maths is right:

• Spot 1: 1 POTA + 13 normal QSOs (4 scoring) = 6 points
• Spot 2: 6 normal QSOs (5 scoring) = 5 points
• Spot 3: 10 normal QSOs (5 scoring) = 5 points
• Spot 4: 8 normal QSOs (5 scoring) = 5 points
• Spot 5: 3 POTA + 7 normal QSOs (2 scoring) = 8 points

That’s 29 points, x5 for the 5 deployments, for a subtotal of 145. Then 3x4 for the 4 non-motorised transitions, and 2x5 for the 5 activations all at QRP power levels, so our final total is 167 points.

Many thanks to our contacts today, and the RaDAR Rally folks for organising the event again. See you on the air next time!