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A chat to my old employer, the MOD, two weeks previously, and permission was given for us to operate from SY87. This square has about 1000m x 250m accessible to the public to the west side of Lulworth cove, but this is mainly cliffs and private gardens, nowhere to park with ease. The remainder is a wet square or on MOD land. I'm sure that any other activity before would have been from White Ways car park, about 600m North of SY87, and therefore outside the square (but still a brilliant /p DX location if you are passing that way).

Our trip to the square was very restricted due to the firing program at Lulworth but we were able to squeeze into a small pocket of the square.

At 08.10 on the 16^th March the Land Rover was loaded for the 25-mile trip through the country lanes, with a ¾ mile 4x4 drive to follow, with enough kit be keep us going for a week:

2 masts , Kenwood 480, SGC ATU, Alinco DX70t, LDG ATU, 2 Sec 1223 PSUs, 100’ end feed antenna, ½ size G5RV, 240V generator - and coax to join the lot up!

We arrived at the location and the setting up began, poles mast and guy ropes everywhere. Dave set up a beacon going out on 2m APRS confirming our location.

At 10.10 the first contact went into the log - PA3AJW who was kind enough to spot us as well, and SY87 was up and running.

There was a steady run of contacts and good signals all around the UK. We did have some problems with bleed over from each other. Dave swapped around the frequencies and was lucky to pick up Bahrain and Mauritius - well worth the move around. About half way through the day we started to swap operations on 40m to vary the day and reduce the bleed over, the day continued with various contacts coming in mainly from G with the odd ones from EU. The days outing came to a close at 15.00 hours, with G3YFM.

Totals for the day were 74 contacts into 12 DXCC - being England, Ireland N & S, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Sweden, Estonia, South France MM, Bahrain & Mauritius.

WX first thing had been very good - even called for sunglasses at one point. But as the day moved on it started to turn for the worse and it had been a good move to close down the station when we did as it started to close in on us very quickly and we ended up clearing up & driving home in thick mist. We had words of thanks from a few stations thanking us for putting on the square and giving out a new one to some WAB collectors.

We would like to say a big thank you to all who called in and to the MOD for allowing us in the square.

We hope to be doing another one soon, so please standby