GB23BLH Littlehampton Beacon highlights (RSGB Beaconnect project)

Apologies for the wind noise and very shaky camera work in parts of this video!

I activated the Littlehampton Millennium Beacon as GB23BLH (Beacon Littlehampton) as part of the RSGB's Beaconnect project. This was during a period of leave from work between Wednesday 21 - Friday 30 June inclusive.

I operated as close to the beacon as possible each time, although occasionally I was slightly further away for discretion and personal safety reasons.

Locator is IO90RT, WAB square is TQ00.

QSOs took place on 40 meters and 20 meters SSB, and 2 meters and 70cms FM. I always seemed to end up with a major pileup on 40 meters, so I never got round to trying the higher HF bands.

My SOTAbeams linked dipole gave an excellent account of itself in the inverted V configuration right next to the sea. The Ampro 20m and 40m whips also performed extremely well for what they are, although the dipole was in a different league to the whip.

I bought the 70cms Yagi from an e-Bay seller years ago. I can't remember who the seller was nor how much I paid for it. I think he was located somewhere in central Europe (Slovakia?)

The Yaesu FT450 is the original model, not the more recent 450D. It was the first HF radio that I ever bought (2009) and it still works perfectly today.

Thank you to the 200 plus stations who worked me, mainly on 40 meters SSB. This video contains a few highlights. One highlight that doesn't appear was a contact with Alan GR0TLK, who kindly coordinated the Beaconnect project.

Websites of interest:
RSGB Beaconnect initative: https://rsgb.org/main/the-coronation-...

QRZ.com page: https://www.qrz.com/db/GB23BLH

SOTAbeams linked dipole: https://www.sotabeams.co.uk/band-hopp...