Everyone loves a dxpedition, an exotic location in the sunshine working through a pileup of hunters desperate to get that rare location in their logbooks…. somewhere like…. Dorset, UK?!? Or to be more precise the Hinknowle Cider Apple Farm campsite, IO80PS.

I was here camping with the family for 4 nights this August, the weather was changeable but propagation in the evenings was great! I operated exclusively on the 20m band as this gave the best predicted propagation using my favourite double bazooka dipole antenna on a Clansman 5.4m portable mast. The antenna was oriented to give maximum gain to the East/West although the inverted v configuration tends to work fairly omnidirectionally. I kept the power to 20w most of the time, occasionally increasing to 50 or 100w when required. The results; I made 22 QSOs in 16 countries.

The furthest QSOs were with 8P5A and 8P6PE in Barbados at over 6,500KM although both are at 100w. I successfully worked VE9CF in Canada on 20w at over 4,000KM and added some new countries to my logbook with A61BG in the UAE and 9K2ES in Kuwait.

Here’s the map:

What did I learn? A few things, Firstly I have a new car and the cigarette lighter plugs only work when the ignition is on, very inconvenient for charging radio batteries! Secondly it can be very hard to make out a weak call sign over the noise of heavy rain on canvas, ear phones need to be added to the kit for the next adventure.