IRTS / RSGB - VHF/UHF Field Day 2017

The weekend of 1st & 2nd of July 2017, I ventured out with the Wexford VHF Group for the IRTS VHF/UHF Field Day. This year we were operational on 50MHz (6m), 70MHz (4m), 144MHz (2m) 432MHz (70cm) & 1296MHz (23cm) from Locator Square "IO62OM" under the call-sign "EI9E/P".

On Thursday the 29th of June I drove from London in England to Pembroke Dock in Wales where I got the Nigh time ferry across to Rosslare in Co. Wexford in the south east coast of Ireland. The crossing was choppy that night with gale force 7-8 winds throughout the night but nothing that well needed sleep didn't solve. At 7am I arrived in Rosslare where I met up with the rest of the crew for the weekend. (Janet, Billy EI7FJ, John EI2FG, Pete G4CLA, Mark EI3KD, Neil EI3JE, John EI7IG, Dan EI3JZ, John EI8JA, Roger EI8KN, Pat EI8IQ, Tom EI5ASB, Pete EI4GZB & Declan EI9HQ) 

We arrived at the stations site on top of White Mountain on Friday afternoon at 15:30BST. First thing first, Lunch was prepared. Fair play to John EI2FG he put together an incredible Beef Stew with a "spicy" kick which went down a treat and certainly gave us a great start to the weekend. After lunch was demolished we began to build our portable stations for the weekend, weather conditions at this point of the day was at least dry for station setup but it did have a chill in the air especially up on the mountain top. Work began on the 6m and 2m stations where antennas were put together and erected including the 6m/4m/2m shack. Later the 70cm and 23cm stations was put together and would be finished the next morning. Once it got dark everyone got the their heads down for some well deserved rest and as soon as the sun broke at 6am everyone was up and at it. Breakfast (fit for a king) was prepared by Billy EI7FJ and Janet.... just what the doctor ordered. The 70cm and 23cm stations were finished off after breakfast and all antennas was erected and tested for the weekends contest. Everything was working smoothly and having a separate main course and pastry chef worked very well, although custard supplies were low this year and someone dropped solder flux into the Friday night stew which was the "Kick" I reckon :-). It was a very enjoyable weekend with mighty craic and it was great to meet new faces too. Thanks to everyone who beamed our way, it was fantastic to work you all.

We finished the contest with the following scores:

50MHz:
134 QSO's - 57,454 Points and ODX: IT9FXY at 2,212Km

70MHz:
86 QSO's - 31,944 Points and ODX: PA2M at 791Km

144MHz:
339 QSO's - 144,342 Points and DK5DQ at 980Km

432MHz:
118 QSO's - 46,832 Points and DF0MU at 958Km

1296MHz:
38 QSO's - 15,166 Points and PI4GN at 909Km

Installing the 2m and 6m antenna

2m: 4x5 LFA Antennas

2m: 2x12 LFA Antennas

70cm and 23cm antennas

EI9HQ & EI4GZB installing 23cm antennas

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We are delighted to receive the IRTS Thomond Trophy for the Open section of the IRTS VHF/UHF Field Day and a certificate from the RSGB for the Leading Non-UK Entry in the open section. As always thank you to the adjudicator's and to you for the points. Looking forward to the next one. 73

  

RSGB – 144MHz Trophy Championship Contest September 2016

On September 3rd & 4th the RSGB - 144 MHz Trophy Championship Contest took place from 14:00 UTC. This was a 24 hour event and this year I was active with the Blacksheep Contest and DX Group under the callsign "G8T" from Locator square JO01KJ. 

There was a lot of preparations made for this contest so most of the group arrived on the site Thursday and started to put together our station for the weekend. Wx was reasonable for the time of year.

Antennas: 2x14 + 4x10 + 6x3 + 2x9

The Band conditions this year was more or less Flat with a slight enhancement towards the South West towards Spain. No equipment issues this year for a change - everything worked except our Internet connection which failed from 2300 UTC to 10.30 UTC which prevented us making many skeds via ON4KST Chat facility. 

We finished up this contest this year in 2nd Place with 700 QSO’s 288,644 points and our ODX was OE1W at 1125 Km. Thanks to all for the QSO's I do hope to work you in the next contest. 

GL & 73

IARU HF Championship July 2016

For this years IARU HF Championship contest on July 9th-10th, 2016, members of the newly formed EI DX Group put on big effort from a green field site with a multi multi station (Multi Radio/ Multi Op) for this contest. The objective for this contest is to contact as many other radio amateurs, especially IARU member society HQ stations, around the world as possible using the 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meter bands. 

We had a 7 station setup for the weekend and were QRV from 10m through 160m bands both on SSB & CW.  The callsign used for the weekend was EI0HQ as the National Irish Headquarter station.

Here was some of the photographs from the weekend thanks to Thos EI2JD.

The EI DX Group operators for the contest

EI0HQ - Multi Multi Station 

 Pete EI4GZB and Declan EI9HQ on SSB 40m

Dave EI4BZ and Myself EI5IX having the craic

 Oleg EI7KD flat out on CW

 Enda EI2II enjoying 10m SSB

Jim EI8GS on 15m SSB

Mark EI6JK in a Pile up on 20m SSB

Thos EI2JD working mults on 40m SSB

Myself EI5IX trying to get serious on 15m CW

Again Myself EI5IX "trying to find a needle in a hay stack" on 20m SSB

One of the HEX Beams in the clear 

Our 80m Vertical

 Pat EI9HX working on the Electrics 

Tri-Bander No. 1 

 The lads working on Tri-Bander No.2

Tri-Bander No.2 up and running with a 40m rotatable Dipole

I really enjoyed the weekend it was a fantastic opportunity to test out some antennas also new equipment and it was a great way to meet new people within our DX group. The weather conditions throughout the weekend could have been better and was quiet variable at times, as on the Friday when setting up the station we had beautiful clear sky's and sunshine but then it rained on the Saturday and Sunday and of course then cleared up for taking everything down at the end of the contest... Typical.... Propagation for this contest was not great this year and activity seemed low at times with the effects of the solar minimum certainly being observed across the bands throughout the weekend and a minor geomagnetic storm was observed during the previous 24 hours of the contest and with a high speed solar wind stream which remained geo-effective, there was some isolated periods of storming which remained throughout the contest unfortunately. Not to worry we all enjoyed the weekend and learned a lot about our EI DX Group including each other. I'm certainly looking forward to meeting up with the guys again and doing some other contests and DXpedition's in the future. The results are still yet to come for this contest hopefully we did alright and my thanks goes to all the EI operators that turned up and made this weekend possible, I really enjoyed myself and I hope you got the opportunity to work us either on SSB or CW and on as many of the bands as you could over the weekend.

If not I hope to catch you in the next contest.

73,