WEEKS ROUNDUP FROM 25/04/2014

Its been quite an eventful few days to say the least, as some of you may know , one of my other hobbies is Amateur Radio and once a year we operate a special event station from a small Marconi Museum at Bass Point next to The Lizard Point the most Southerly point of the UK.
We do this on the Saturday nearest to April 27th which was Marconi's Birthday to celebrate his wireless Achievements.
There are around 50+ Stations world wide operating from places where Marconi conducted his experiments, they operate for a 24hr period.  This gives Ham Operators all over the world a chance to talk to Marconi sites, and if an operator can contact 15 stations they qualify for an award certificate, each site will also exchange a QSL card (confirmation of contact ) with them.
So down to the nitty gritty of the event, Friday is setup day which involves setting up the Antennas and radios, it was a really glorious morning (as can be seen from the first two images below ) and we had the two masts and antennas plus radios setup by midday,which was great as I had to be back early to pick up one of the Grandchildren from school, so everything was ready to operate on the Saturday.
On the Saturday morning left home at 06.30 to drive the 25 miles down to Bass Point for 07.00. the weather was not good heavy showers and a strengthening South Westerly wind, on arrival it was blowing a real gale, of the two masts put up one had been taken down on Friday as it is very  easly damaged in any wind. The other was a 30ft mast with a large wire antenna,and this was bending to an angle of 45 degrees in the wind.
The decision was made right away that it was far to dangerous to try and operate in these conditions, as if this mast came down it could cause serious damage.
So two of us pulling hard on the Guy ropes to get the mast vertical ant the third member slowly releasing the mast sections to lower it down.
It was then a case of packing everything up and abandoning the event which was a real disappointment, but safety had to come first.
You can see the difference in the sea conditions in shots 3 and 4 and I can tell you as I was taking the photo's I was being blown backwards by the wind.
Images 5 & 6 are examples of QSL cards from 2013 and 2014 which I design for each years event, sadly non will be issued for this year.
 the rest of the images are from a few trips to various places over the last week, the best one although its only a record shot is the Montague's Harrier taken on Monday this week and the first time I have managed to photograph this species.  

HOUSEL BAY & THE LIZARD LIGHT.

MARCONI MUSEUM BASS POINT.

                                      

                                                     HOUSEL BAY & and; THE LIZARD LIGHT.

GROUND SWELL (BASS POINT).

2013 QSL CARD (CONFIRMATION OF CONTACT ).

2014 QSL CARD (CONFIRMATION OF CONTACT).

BROWN-LIPPED SNAIL (ST GOTHIAN SANDS ).

FLESH FLY (ST GOTHIAN SANDS ).

MEADOW PIPIT ( KYNANCE COVE).

WHITETHROAT (ST GOTHISN SANDS ).

WREN ( ST GOTHIAN SANDS ).

MONTAGUE'S HARRIER (CROFT PASCOE ).