I blame it on Martin when he showed me a picture of a "tactical" back pack with all those bits of webbing on it. Great. Never heard of it before but there is a system for joining bags or pouches together by interlacing webbing.

Anyway I had to have one and we spoke about adapting one to take all the portable kit for next years outward bound hikes. Here is the sort of thing that we are looking to fit in.



I wanted to have each bit of equipment in individual bags that could easily be fitted in or taken out.

The blue bit fits in to the pack with the webbing and has Velcro on it so can stick the individual pouches to it, with the idea that they are held in place and don't jiggle around when I am made to march up a hill.







Then I got around to making a prototype pouch. This one for the power supply. As that won't be going on Martins Marches it does not need the sticky velcro treatment just some MOLLE webbing on the back for attachment possibilities.







So with that sorted I have the material on order to get on with the rest of them.

One thing we also need is antenna poles. Here they are one each side of the pack . Modelled kindly my Mrs LDZ.

Last night was the last of the 6M cumulative contests and again I went up to MP for what turned out to a a surprisingly nice moonlit night with the LF yagi.

Many stations were clearly out enjoying themselves not on the radio (how better that sitting in the cold for three hours I know not) and as a consequence there was not such high activity as in the past. There was no DX but the NI and IOM were there to be had if you picked the right time as conditions fluctuated a great deal.

I find it very interesting how conditions vary from month to month and am now starting to appreciate how they change during the contest period as well.

Here is the map.

JOTA was good for one thing….the bands were open after a long silence.

That was met with QSO 2 with Brother Apollo on Mount Athos.

Now those in the know will tell you that Mount Athos is currently the 7th most sought after DX entity that there is. Most US dx’ers would give their eye teeth for a chance to work SV2ASP/A as he is the only one that operates from Mount Athos and when he gives up then there will be no-one. You are not allowed to visit to operate. So it is predicted by the dx’er that I chat with that very soon this will be in the top 5.

It cost a reasonable donation to get the card, but it all goes to a good charity on the Mount. I have heard that G8AJM has also worked Brother A and of course GØBBB.

So keep your ears open as we are close enough to work Mount Athos with reasonable levels of success.

Dave has this card as the QSO was on the special event GB4MTE call.