Patience paid off and I got my first and second QSOs tonight, M3YLN and G8ORV, one mobile within a mile and the other in Southend town (3 miles). Both strong 9′s, pegging the meter. Good to talk to both and a refreshing occurance after the silence of last night.
It’s all working :)
I’ve finally delivered on an old promise of getting my amateur radio foundation licence. Today Ofcom granted me the callsign M6DVX and this evening I’ve been trying to contact some local stations.
Being as geeky as I can get, I had my callsign validated for EchoLink right away and this evening tried Clive’s EchoLink node MB7IAD-L (265297). After installing under Wine (Ubuntu), I tested the link and found I could easily transmit a well readable signal the 20 miles at 1W. Alas, no one answered my call.
Made another call on the 2m repeater GB3DA, complete with ACK, however again, no replies. Booo!
Likewise, calls on 145.500 were un-answered.
A little disappointing, but it’s only day 1 and I did call rather late. There’s always tomorrow!
