{"id":193,"date":"2025-09-02T17:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T16:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=193"},"modified":"2025-11-19T21:17:59","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T21:17:59","slug":"a-mini-dxpedition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/2025\/09\/02\/a-mini-dxpedition\/","title":{"rendered":"A mini dxpedition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>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&#8230;. somewhere like&#8230;. Dorset, UK?!?  Or to be more precise the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hincknowleciderapplefarm.co.uk\/\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.hincknowleciderapplefarm.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hinknowle Cider Apple Farm<\/a> campsite, IO80PS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/P8270113-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-194\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/P8270113-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/P8270113-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/P8270113-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/P8270113-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/P8270113-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Dxpedition comms<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>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 <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/2025\/04\/03\/a-simple-double-bazooka-dipole-design\/\" target=\"_blank\">double bazooka dipole<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"667\" height=\"622\" src=\"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/image001.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/image001.png 667w, https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/image001-300x280.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 667px) 100vw, 667px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Hinknowle Apple Farm QSOs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s the map: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/image001-1-1024x675.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/image001-1-1024x675.png 1024w, https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/image001-1-300x198.png 300w, https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/image001-1-768x506.png 768w, https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/image001-1.png 1093w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">QSO Map<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8230;. somewhere like&#8230;. 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,9,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions\/198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}