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Our last family visit to Elgin was just six ago we flew from Birmingham but at the airport we experienced long delays and poor customer service. This time we were booked to fly from London Gatwick to Inverness on
the 19:20 flight. Allison and I travelled to Gatwick on the coach from  Oxford but to be honest I wished we had gone by train to the airport. We gave ourselves plenty of time before our flight so that we could have
 dinner in one of the restaurants at the airport and read the evening newspapers before boarding the plane. 
Our flight to Inverness departed on time and we arrived at Inverness airport on schedule we were met by Allison’s Mum she was looking a lot better than the last time we met and Robert Allison’s brother the drive to Elgin took about an hour. I think Allison was really pleased to be with her family and she seemed a lot happier

Our first full day was Tuesday and after a wonderful full Scottish breakfast I read of the press and journal newspaper Allison and I walked into Elgin to visit the Cathedral “The lantern of the north” well it was in its heyday however time and history has not kind to this former place of worship and today it’s a shadow of its former self. What seemed very strange to me was the fact the sometime in the past it became an offence to pray in the ruins of the cathedral I think this was because of religious bigotry the old religion was Catholic and when this ban was introduced the church had changed its strips to the new religion  Robert was right when he said to me that if the cathedral had not been destroyed visitors would travel from far and  wide to see it and  pay a lot of money to visit it.

Wednesday we woke to a dull overcast and very wet day in fact it poured down with rain. Allison and I went into Elgin and we visited Elgin Museum this is a little gem of a place full of interesting stuff I like the display on the Jacobites and Eglin Cathedral The museum is run by volunteers and they are a pleasure to meet the staff are able to bring the displays to life by adding more information and explaining things a little more in detail if you so wish. The museum also has the best kept loo in town. After visit the museum Allison and I went out for lunch in Elgin and we took advantage of doing shopping in the local book shops. About 5pm the rain had stopped and the sun broke through the clouds and the evening was the better part of the day so far as the
weather was concerned. In the evening Robert took Allison and I to Lossiemouth to visit John and Heather and the girls. It wonderful to be able to see them again this was our second visit this year to their new home in Lossiemouth at our time of visit you could see the east beech from there back garden. During our visit I was able to show heather Twitter and also my website. On the way back to Elgin I noticed how free the night sky was from light pollution this really is a big problem in oxford.

Thursday we woke to a better day the weather was more settled and at least it was dry but it always seemed to threaten rain but this never happened. This was our last full day Allison and I took the bus to Lossiemouth we walked from the west beech round to the harbour calling in to the café the service was very slow indeed we waited over half an hour to order we settled for hot drinks and cake. We had intended to have gone in for lunch. When we left the harbour café the weather was changing the wind was getting up and blowing a gale
 so we headed back to Elgin. After dinner with Allison’s Mum and Brother Robert I went down to Kings mills on an evening photo-shoot the sun was laying low in the west and was acting as a flood light on Elgin Cathedral
I was able to take advantage and I took some really good photographs.

Friday we woke to wonderful sunshine the light was great and I would have liked to have gone on a photo-shoot over at Spyne palace but unfortunately this was our last few hours in Elgin and after breakfast we went by car to Inverness airport The journey was very nice and we liked seeing the new born lambs and pigs in the fields we noticed snow on the hills around Inverness. We said fair well to Allison’s mum and to Mary John’s mum after booking in for the midday flight we went to the restaurant for fresh coffee and Danish pastries and to read the day’s newspapers I read the Scotsman while Allison read the Times. There was to be one last treat for us and this was when the plane took off we had clear views over Inverness and our flight path was down
Loch Ness and over the Cairngorm mountains. We landed at London Gatwick in heavy rain but was home again in Oxford before 5pm.

The CQ WPX  SSB  leg of the contest took place over the last weekend of march 2008 I am not overly keen on spending a lot of time in large pile ups shouting into the microphone and of course a good quality voice key-er would be a great help this is one little item of amateur radio station kit that I must get organised.  There is a voice key-er in the logging program that I use and Peter set this up for me but I must get some thing sorted out  before to long. As this can will add to my enjoyment of SSB contesting.

As expect the bands were crowed and  the pile ups were very large as is normal the big guns get worked first then those of us on the bands who have a smaller “Signal level” foot print have to wait our turn until we are heard.  As I often remark every dog has its day and what joy it is when your signal is heard in a large pile up some times this happens but not always and then its only a matter of time before you get your chance to make the much needed qso then its time to tune up or down the band to the next station and try all over again.

Some thing very strange always seems to happen on the Amateur radio bands whenever their is a big contest taking place 1) The bands are full of stations 2) Bands which normal seem to be closed or have very little activity on them are buzzing.

This year I noticed that 15m opened on Sunday afternoon and stayed open well into the night  a couple of days before the contest I had read in Radcom that a dipole for 15m would out perform a windom antenna this side of the solar cycle the time spent after work on Tuesday with Peter’s M3PHP making a dipole for this band paid off  the antenna was put up as a sloping dipole facing into the states.  On 40m I was also able to take advantage of being able to operate from 7.100 to 7.200 my qso rate was also higher on 80m

Spring comes in between the 19th to the 23rd of March and at different times. It changes on a yearly basis because the first official day of spring is the (Spring) Vernal Equinox. This is when the sun is directly above the equator. It rises due East and sets due West and does not do so on the exact same day every year, since the calendar is not exactly 365 precise days every single year. This year spring arrived on March 20; the sun was above the equator, and crossed to the northern hemisphere at approximately 11:47p.m.

Our fore fathers would have longed for this day to arrive they would have been looking forward to it marking the days and hours in not so hit or miss a way as you might think its not all that long ago that we were in tune to the daily and seasonal rhythm of nature the heart beat of the creator. Our modern life style has left many of us desensitised there is the odd occasion when this side of us is reawakened perhaps during the time of the full moon or high tide. Or you notice on your commute to the office from the train window new born lambs in the farmer’s fields.  Before you have time to think about it something deep within you has reawakened and is lost again sometime later due to unseen pressures of our daily grind.

Our life does not hold out much if at the end of the weekly commute and stressful soul destroying grind that on a Friday evening upon returning home from work we are so stressed out that we seek comfort in a bottle of Chilean Chardonnay wine with pizza for supper to tired and run down to enjoy anything better is this the life style our fore fathers hoped that there future sons and daughters would have no of course not sadly it is the grim reality for many.

So perhaps this spring we could start a new do you remember making your New Year resolutions well how about making a Spring time resolutions this time it could be when you start over a new reawakening your spiritual side some folk feel very close to the creator when they are in the country side and to others its when they are in Church. Give it ago and enjoy a more full filling life style.

This year is the 71st RSGB commonwealth contest it took place over the weekend of 15th-16th of March one of the selling points of this contest is the statement “The commonwealth contest promotes amateur radio contacts between stations in the Commonwealth and Mandated Territories A more relaxed contest environment gives the opportunity to work some choice DX”

Click to view larger map

well I am hooked its not often that I get the change to work long distance amateur radio stations there is a couple of things that have to be settled from the start this is not going to be easy the pile ups will be large the big guns will work the DX first and the small pistols will just have to wait there turn. One the plus side in this contest their is no European Zoo. If the station you are calling can hear you they will work you. I worked nearly every one I could hear some times the pile up’s were large and I just had to wait a little longer but in the end I made the QSO my station was made up of the Yaseu FT-950 and windom antenna.  I made 28 QSO’s I had hoped to reached 30 qso’s but this was not to be. All told I had a great time in the BERU and I am looking forward to next time perhaps I will be able to increase my qso rate and work some new countries. I spent 2 hours 17 minutes operating time in the contest.

In the log:

40m

5B4AGN Cyprus, VO1HP Newfoundland, ZC4LI Cyprus (UK Bases), VE3QAA Ontario,

ZC4VJ Cyprus (UK Bases) VO1MP Newfoundland. 6Y8XF Jamaica, ZL4CE New Zealand.

20m

P3J Cyprus, 5B4AGN Cyprus  VE3KI Ontario, VE3DZ Ontario, VC3A Ontario,

ZC4VJ Cyprus 6Y8XF Jamaica, ZC4LI Cyprus (UK Bases), VE3UTT Ontario,

VE3FU Ontario, VE3QAA Ontario, 9H3JT Malta, 9M6XRO East Malaysia,

VE3EJ Ontario, VE3DX Ontario, VA2WDQ Quebec, VE3EW Ontario.

15m

ZC4VJ Cyprus UK Base, ZC4LI Cyprus (UK Base).

Due to family illness I had an unscheduled trip to Scotland over the long weekend of 13th-15th February my mother in law had been admitted into Dr Gray’s hospital Elgin and of course my wife wanted to see her mum our daughter Julie took care of the travel arrangements this was no easy task we would normally fly Gatwick to Inverness but the plane was fully booked. So we booked Birmingham International airport to Aberdeen. During the past few weeks there had been a lot of snow in Moray and it was lying on the ground but we were surprised to learn from BBC news reports on the Thursday that Inverness airport was closed due to snow the airport did however reopen later in the day but of course all flights had been delayed.

We left home on Friday and caught the 06.36 train to Birmingham and this part of the journey went very smoothly the train was busy and we were pleased that we had booked seats only to find someone else sat there but they did move when asked. Oxford to Banbury is 23 miles we covered this distance in 10 minutes. As we got north of Banbury we saw snow lying in the fields and this reached the town of Royal Leamington Spa. The train arrived at Birmingham International on time.

Before checking in at the airport Allison and I went to J D Wetherspoon for breakfast I ordered the Farmhouse breakfast which comprised Two fried free-ranged eggs, two rashers of bacon and two sausages, served with baked beans, three hash browns, a large flat mushroom, half a grilled tomato and two slices of toast an fresh coffee. Allison ordered the Tradition Breakfast Fried free-range eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, hash browns, a large flat mushroom and half a grilled tomato with a cup of tea. After a relaxing breakfast we checked in and headed for a coffee shop so that we could relax and read the papers.

Our flight was delayed but there was no explanation at first the terminal information boards just said flight BE7006 boarding in 10 minutes but as the time past so the ten minutes never changed then it moved to 30 minutes then delayed there were no members of staff around I was left feeling that the passengers for this flight had been abandoned. After over an hour’s delay we boarded a bus that took us to the perimeter of the air port and we boarded the plane once we were on board we were told that due to technical problems the flight had been delayed and we had to wait for the plane to be loaded with the aviation fuel after more delays finally we were air born. And One hour twenty minutes later we were coming into land at Aberdeen airport. As we were landing the airport terminal was being evacuated this lead to more delays as we had to stay on the plane until the terminal was reopened.

We should have landed at 12:05 and we were nearly two hours late we were great full that Mary had waited for us and she drove us the 90 odd miles to Elgin we arrived at the hospital just before 4pm and Allison was able to spend some time with her mum. I should add here that this was some drive there was load’s of snow laying in the fields the main road between Aberdeen to Inverness has a dual carriage way only in places. Mary told us that in order to keep the cost down only one lane each way had been cleared of snow.

In the evening Allison brother Robert called by the house to take us to the Hospital and afterwards we went down to Lossiemouth to visit John and Heather and their two children before leaving Lossie at 11pm we called into the best fish and chip shop in the area for fish suppers I wish we had a fish and chip shop like that near us. It was close to 1 am before we went to bed and before Robert left us he promised to be back about 8am with the news papers and buttered rolls for breakfast. If you have never tried them then they should be added to your list of 1,000 things I must try before I die wish list. Mike and Linda came down from Archiestion it’s a small village in Spey side over looking Aberlour and Mike showed us some photographs of the snow he had taken at home and in the surrounding area.

We spent Saturday morning looking around Elgin tourist shopping and we had lunch out with Linda one of my wifes sisters. I left Allison and her sister and took a taxi to Lossiemouth modern day lossiemouth in fact covers three places and they are all marked on the ordnance survey map but refered to only by the name of Lossiemouth the taxi driver left me in Seatown which is a small fishing community I walked along the river Lossie estuary where I spent some time photographing the wild life  before walking to the harbour which is called Branderburgh then onto Stotfield my pictures can been seen at  http://www.flickr.com/photos/m3jfm/sets/72157613937872520/

Lossiemouth is a lovely place and the folk are very friendly  many of them came up for a bleater. My visit to was at the time of a higher than normal high tide and this brought out a few extra folk who wanted witness this event for themselves because of the tide I only walked half way along the west beech to the light house normally I would have walked as far as the light house. I returned to Elgin on the local bus back to Elgin arriving back home in time for dinner at 6pm

Allison and I spent the evening with her Mum and Sunday morning in the afternoon  John drove us back to Aberdeen we had coffee before checking in and our 16.05 flight back to Birmingham International airport went like clockwork Allison and I went back to J D Wetherspoon for a relaxing dinner we had curry this was one of the best curries I have had in a long time. We returned home on the train.

Allison was pleased to see her mum and family again and they all helped to make our trip as comfortable and pleasant as possible and went out their way to help us so a big thank you to Robbie,  John and Heather, Mary and granddad Hamilton, Linda and Mike, Ann and Derek, Debbie and Frankie.

Sunday morning Peter and I caught the train from Oxford to Didcot to visit the Harwell radio & electronics rally The train journey was short but it was very pleasant sat on the train looking out the window as the Oxfordshire country side was covered in a blanket of snow. We met up with Ian M0PCB in Didcot town centre and walked up to the rally.

The rally program lists some thing like 46 traders missing was UK Tesla Coil builders and Moonraker.  However a radio rally would not be the same without the club stands Oxford & DARS, ISWL, RAFARS, RSARS, Youlbury Scout & Guide Amateur Radio station, Harwell ARS to name a few - I left Peter and Ian as I wanted to head to the RSGB were I brought a copy of the 6 Metre handbook by Don Field G3XTT this book was on the top of my list I went down to the ISWL stand and the GB4YOU.

I met up with Peter and Ian we went into the main hall I brought a drum of 50 ohm coax  for £35 from Henry Westlake. After a look around the different traders we met up with Barry G4AZN for lunch sandwiches and tea or coffee from the refreshment stand. We were later to meet up with Tim G4VXE he writes the radio sports page in Radcom. one of the thing I like about the Harwell rally is the opportunity to meet up with friends old and new and to put faces to call signs.

Photography or some think like that at least. During the weeks before Christmas I brought a Nikon D90 DSLR all singing and dancing camera as with any new toy I was keen to try it out at the very first opportunity and over the following couple weeks I have been exploring the new camera and learning what I can and cannot do with it. I have been on photo-shoots in the university of Oxford  and at Stowe Park Buckinghamshire. For years I have been using a 35mm SLR and to be honest the two camera’s are not the same beast with the SLR photography is a craft you need the skill to take a good picture then in the dark room add the finishing touches. Compare this with the DSLR shoot three images in landscape photography and use some compture soft ware to blend the three images to make one image is not my idea of the photographers craft and I will continue to explore photography as an art form but with the DSLR. I have since added to the my camera kit a Nikon telephoto lens I have upload some of my photographs to flicker

As I write this post I am reminded that we are 18 days into 2009. Perhaps your thinking I am going to dribble on about the new year celebrations or my new years resolutions. I saw the new year in with my family regarding the making or braking of new year resolutions I made none so there is no need to get stressed out about not keeping them. nevertheless I have not dismissed the idea of setting goal’s or better still small sign post’s along 2009 that I might be able to attain with out getting to stressed out or that are set so that they become unattainable and bring only disappointment.

I have no intention during 2009 to spend loads of money on stuff for stuff’s sake nor do I desire to fall into the trap of

“spending money we have not

yet earned on things

we don’t want to

impress people

we don’t like”

The small goal posts that I hope to celebrate during 2009 are:

1. “The home coming”
2. “The International year of Astronomy”
3. “The 250th year of Robert Burn’s”

Each one means some thing special to me and I hope to be able in some small measure to be able to take part in their celebrations.

At the darkest moment of the year when the nights seem endless and the days very short comes that most joyful festivals the celbration of the birth of Jesus christ the light of the world. christmas is a truly magical season bringing families and friends together to share the much-loved customs and traditions that over the centuries have come to surround this heart-warming and deepley symbolic occasion.

Christmas eve and christmas day are not icluded in the Twelve days of christmas which starts on boxing day, or St Stephen’s day and finish on twelfth night or Epiphany when the Christ-child was shown to the Magi 6th Janaury each day represents the twelve months of the passing year.

Christmas is not just a time of feasting and receiving but also a time of giving when good King Wenceslas trudged throught the freezing snow on the feast of stephen to take food. wine, and logs to a poor man he was setting the scence for the old English custom of boxing day The name stems from the distribution of food and money - Christmas boxes to the less fortunate members of the parish. Jesus once said “that the poor will always be with us”

I was deeply moved after I discovered  that a homeless lady called Josie was found dead in the Easton Street car park next to the Union Baptist Church High Wycombe on Christmas morning 2006. For some years with members of the Isis Scout Fellowship Allison and I had been helping to run a full christmas dinner that guest’s pay for with all profits going towards helping to of set the cost so that local people in oxford who might be on their own on christmas day could celebrate christmas with dinner and a small gift. At the city salvation army building. In 2007 I joined a local group of people and together we brought christmas presents for folk in one of the towns night shelters - This year 2008 we thought it would be a great idea if a group of us shared the cost so that Christmas food and a gift went to folk who were staying in one of the Oxford homeless Shelters. In 2009 we hope to be able to increase our good works towards those who might be homeless at christmas or spending christmas day alone.

This afternoon Peter and I went on a photo-shoot starting at the Oxford train station and going onto join the River thames at Osney Bridge again it was a bitter cold afternoon the Oxford canal was frozen over. I noticed that there was ice on the thames at Osney lock. We walked along the Thames path heading south as far as Folly bridge I took 20 odd photographs and after editing the images I have added some images to flickr