RSGB VHF/UHF National Field Day 2015

The weekend of 4th & 5th of July 2015, I ventured out with the Blacksheep DX & Contest group for the VHF/UHF National Field Day.

We were operational on 50MHz (6m), 70MHz (4m), 144MHz (2m) & 432MHz (70cm) from Locator Square "JO01KJ" under the call-sign "M0BAA/P".

We arrived on site on the Friday at 15:00BST and began to set up our portable stations, weather conditions were amazing on the Friday with the sun beaming down on us as we constructed the stations for the contest which were starting on the Saturday at 14:00UTC until Sunday 14:00UTC. We worked hard into the evening on Friday until the Thunderstorms ceased our operations, so we decided to order a Take Away and have a few beers then bed down for the rest of the night to which got up early on Saturday morning and finished off the rest of the station builds. Weather was certainly a lot different on Saturday morning a lot cooler and the land was wet from the torrential rain the night before. 

Team Building the 144MHz - 4 x 10 Array

 Team erecting the 144MHz - 4 x 10 Array

144MHz - 4 x 10 Array up and running

432MHz Shack going together

 

432MHz Station - 4 x 17 Array on a Versa Tower

 50MHz 7 element antenna on a Versa Tower

 50MHz / 70MHz Shack

The good old Power Horse Generator (Now RIP)

EI5IX / M0XII rolling up Eco Flex 15+ Cable

When things go Wrong....

We had a lot more challenges than usual present them selves this time around but we just put the head down pushed on through then suddenly it was 14:00UTC...CQ Contest!!! 

I had the pleasure of operating with Stephen G4SHF and Nick G4FAT on 50 MHz. Mike G8TIC along with Matt G0XDI and Andy 2E0IBF operated on 144MHz and Dave G7RAU with Bill M0BTZ operated on 432MHz for the start of the contest. We kept rotating operators on the stations which was great as it gave every body a feel of the different bands over the weekend. 

Once 50MHz had finished at 22:00UTC we had to dismantle the station and built the 70MHz setup for the next morning at 08:00UTC, Operators were getting tired so we said we would finish the setup on Sunday morning only to find a few more issues which delayed our start on the 70MHz band by 45 minutes. 

Once 14:00UTC on Sunday appeared on the clock some very weary and tired contesters began to disassemble the stations and get ready for the next stage "packing up", We decided to stay overnight Sunday and go for some Fish and Chips have a few beers then get some sleep and be fresh for the morning. We got up Monday early packed up the stations and left the site in the afternoon for journey back home.

We finished up the contest with the following claimed scores and entries into the Open section of this contest with the following:

50Mhz (6m):

182 QSO's - 40'809 Total Points with an ODX of 2007Km with 9H5MC


70Mhz (4m):

91 QSO's - 21'284 Total points with an ODX of 779Km with GM3WOJ


144MHz (2m):

657 QSO's - 268'429 Total points with an ODX of 1100Km with OL7M


432MHz (70cms):

227 QSO's - 75'752 Total points with an ODX of 969Km with OL3Z

I have got to thank the Blacksheep DX & Contest group (Mike G8TIC, Stephen G4SHF, Nick G4FAT, Matt G0XDI, Bill M0BTZ, Andy 2E0IBF and Dave G7RAU) for the hard work they all put in over the weekend and especially for making VHF/UHF NFD contest a success for us even though we had some issues along the way the Team stayed positive and pushed on through, I really enjoyed the weekend, it was great craic and a good laugh and I'm looking forward to the next one.

73's

Pat

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UPDATE - 07/08/2015

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I'm delighted to announce that we won VHF / UHF NFD contest for the second successive year, though the margin was incredibly close (00.6%, or 21 Normalised points. Thanks (as always) to those who worked us and to VHFCC for the super fast adjudication. Full results at : http://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/vhfresults.pl?Contest=VHF%20NFD&year=2015

All the Blacksheep Group Team receiving the various Trophies that we won throughout 2015 including for the Open section the VHF National Field Day  "Surrey Cup" 

which Matt G0XDI and Mike G8TIC are holding in the picture above. 

RSGB 50 MHz CW Trophy Contest 2015

The RSGB 50MHz CW Trophy contest on the 28th of June at 09:00- 12:00 UTC under the Blacksheep DX & Contest Group callsign"M0BAA/P" from locator IO91MP.
Bill M0BTZ joined me up on the hill were we put together our Portable setup, FT847 with 100W and a 5 Element Tonna Yagi about 6 meters off the ground.


There was Poor conditions on the 6M band with very little Tropo propagation around and UK activity was low, Thank god for some sproadic E propagation to keep us on our toes but not as much as we would have liked, Weather was Mild but it did rain a few times which hindered rotating the mast at times as we went with the old armstrong method this time around.  We entered the Open section as it was set out for Portable stations and finished up the contest with a claimed score of 50 QSO's 9,375 Points with "YO2BBT" as our ODX of 1797Km. 

Here is a Video of Me operating during the contest:

Here is a map of our QSO's:

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UPDATE - 21/07/2015

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50 MHz CW 2015

This is the fourth year of the 50MHz CW contest. The number of entries has continued to decrease with only 21 entries this year. Though there were 85 UK stations active in the event.

Tropo conditions were reported as being from flat to poor to terrible. There was patchy sporadic E throughout the event though only 31 Es QSOs were completed with 12 stations in DL, EA, EA8, I, IS0, OZ, YO and YU. The best DX was between G4SGX and EA8DBM at 3098 kms and the best tropo contact was between G3ZVW and GM4PPT at 529 kms.

During the adjudication 8.3% of QSOs were disallowed and some entrants will notice large reductions in their claimed scores. Again the most common error was with RST.

Congratulations go to:

The Tiverton (SW) RC G4TSW for winning the Open section.

Steve G3ZVW for winning the SF section.

The other certificate winners who are identified in the results tables.

This contest is the second leg of the 2015 VHF CW Championship. G4TSW maintain their lead followed by M0BAA/P.

Roger - G4BVY

Thanks to Roger for adjuciating this contest and to all that gave us points during the contest delighted to come in 2nd place, look forward to the next contest, 73 - Pat EI5IX / M0XII

RSGB / IARU 50Mhz Trophy Contest 2015 from IN79JX

On June 20th & 21st the RSGB & IARU R1 - 50 MHz International Trophy Contest took place. I was active again this year with The BlackSheep Contest and DX Group under the callsign "G8T" from Locator square IN79JX. I arrived on site on Friday evening to help the Team put together our station for the weekend.

G8T 50 MHz Contest Station 

Band conditions were very patchy with very few Es on Saturday but much better on Sunday. Our ODX was KP4S at 6453Km via multihop Es on Saturday evening. We finished up the Contest with a claimed score of 638 QSO's and 232 Multipliers totaling 177,146,848 points.

WX was foggy and windy at times right on the coast. 

 Team putting antennas together 

Versa Tower no.2 going up

Mandy and Myself enjoying a nice Cuppa Taé

Mike G8TIC and Tim G4LOH

 Jaxon in the hot seat

 Mummy (Mandy) getting Jaxon all prepared

Daddy (Matt G0XDI) taking a rest with Jaxon

I got to say a big Thank you to the guys of the Blacksheep Contest group it was a fantastic weekend. (Pic L>R: Andy 2E0IBF, Bill M0BTZ (with the 50Mhz Telford Trophy from 2013 & 2014), Matt G0XDI, Mike G8TIC (With Shackle our Blacksheep), Rohan M6TIC, 

Nick G4FAT (With the Surrey NFD Trophy from 2014) Tim G4LOH including myself Pat EI5IX / M0XII. Thanks to Matt's wife Mandy for taking the Photo of us all, it certainly was a fantastic experience and great weekend with the group. Looking forward to our next one together. 

UPDATE - 16/07/15

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There was very good sporadic-e for this contest with 26 stations working across into the Caribbean and Cape Verde at over 6000km. Well done to UR7D and Z35T for working KP4 - Puerto Rico at over 8000km and to G1ZJP, G0VHF/P and M0WAF/P for working PJ4 - Bonaire at over 7000km.

Looking through the logs was very interesting and although at times the e"s were patchy there were 332 different locators up for grabs and 2107 different call-signs appear in the logs. A strong opening to the east and south-east enabled good points for many with good activity from most countries i.e. there were 267 unique Italian calls in the logs.
Turnout this year was similar to last year (98 this year compared to 93 in 2014) with the exception of an increase of overseas entries from 12 to 17 and sections 6S and SF were up by 4 each.

The same logging errors appeared this year as last year and common errors were incorrect serial numbers, some odd calls due to Mixing I"s and O"s with numbers and strange locators i.e. a station placed in Asiatic Russia (not permitted!) and a European station moved to South America and so on. It is worthwhile at least sense checking prefixes and typo funnies before submitting as a number of these were obviously wrong!
There were a number of stations using the DX window 100-130 to conduct European QSOs which contravenes the IARU band plan. The rules are quite clear on this and if you are going to CQ in the window you can only count the QSOs with other continents and should not work the European callers. Warnings have been issued and hopefully next year I will not be reporting on this.

The use of chat websites e.g. KST are allowed for this contest as it is in line with an IARU event but please remember do not to pass any information or assist the QSO in any way apart from agreeing a frequency to work each other, things like please "send the serial again" is seen as assisting the QSO and will result in a penalty being applied. If you want to stop the other station assisting during the QSO then say before starting "No chat during the QSO please".

A final note on operating; I have received complaints and noted myself that some stations were frequency hopping onto other stations frequencies where QSOs were in progress. It is courteous to ask if the frequency is in use (or QRL? In cw) before starting CQ Contest as mutual QRM always destroys the QSO rate for both parties.

Well done to the Blacksheep CG operating again down on the Lizard in Cornwall for retaining the Telford Trophy with a massive score and congratulations to G8XVJ/P " Erik operating from IO93 who takes the Six Metre Cup with a huge lead over the other contenders in this category.
Well done to all the other certificate winners", details are shown in the results tables on the RSGB Website.

Dave Edwards 
g7rau@rsgbcc.org

73's

Pat

RSGB 70MHz CW Trophy Contest, May 10th 2015

On May 10th the RSGB - 70 MHz CW Trophy Contest took place. I was out active with The BlackSheep Contest and DX Group under the callsign "M0BAA/P" from Locator square JO01KJ and first time that the Blacksheep Contest and DX group have entered this contest. Mike G8TIC and Bill M0BTZ and I arrived on site on the Saturday evening and set up the antenna system which was a 7 element DK7ZB on our Versa Tower at 20m, we worked hard into Saturday night building the system and finally setup the Yaesu FT5000DX with a DB6NT Transverter and a 4CX250B valve linear amplifier producing 160 watts. Once everything was prepared we went for a beer with some food and got some sleep before the start of the contest at 09:00UTC.

Conditions were flat and at times we struggled to work stations in the north of the country, but some big MS bursts at times from the continent included us hearing some Eastern European commercial radio stations break through at times. As for the weather I got to say it was very good to us for this contest and certainly helped us when setting up and taking apart the station.

We finished this contest in 3rd Place with 31 QSO's and 27 Post Code Multipliers totalling 268,083 points, our ODX was GM3WOJ at 779Km's. 

Once again thanks to everyone that called us and gave us points in this contest it was great to see some EI/GI stations in the log too.

Look forward to the next one,

73's 

Pat  

RMS Lusitania Anniversary

The Lusitania was the fastest ship on the Atlantic and took the Blue Riband Award 

for crossing to New York in 4 days, 19 hours and 52 minutes. She left New York on the 

1st of May 1915 with 1959 passengers and crew on board. On the 7th of May a single torpedo fired from the German U-boat U-20 slammed into the starboard side of the Lusitania off the southern coast of Ireland, The ship listed and sank in just 18 minutes. While 761 of those on board were rescued 1198 were not so fortunate. 

To mark the 100th anniversary, the Mayo Club, MREN, will be activating the special event 

callsign EI0MFA as part of their club’s activity evening on the 6th of May and on various 

occasions throughout the month of May. 

The Lusitania Radio Club will be operating the special event callsign EI100MFA on the 6th and 7th of May from a site near the Old Head of Kinsale Lighthouse, Co Cork. Ireland

New Transatlantic 144MHz beacon

The EI2DKH Transatlantic 144MHz beacon 

Operational as of 12 April 2015.

Transmitting JT65b with CW ID on 144.488 MHz every even minute 

 Listening on 144.155 MHz every odd minute.

Any call signs received are uploaded to a publicly accessible webpage at http://86.43.106.118/ei4hq/ei8jk/

During major meteor showers the beacon will switch to FSK441

BEACON DETAILS:

4 x 5 element LFA-Q (22.24 dBi) QTF 270º

(sponsored by InnoVantennas http://www.innovantennas.com/)
Antenna height 60m ASL
TX power 75 watts

QTH LOCATOR: IO51DN 

Latitude: 51 33.70'N, Longitude: 009 42.60'W. 

LOCATION:
Kilcrohane, Sheeps Head, Co. Cork, Ireland. 

Kilcrohane is about half way out the Sheeps Head Peninsula - a long, rugged headland that extends out into the Atlantic Ocean off Ireland's South West Coast. 

Sheeps Head is on the route of Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way.

73's DE EI5IX / M0XII - Pat

CQ WPX Contest, March 28th & 29th 2015

The following summary is from Jim M0CKE:

Call: G2F

Operator(s): EI5IX MØCHK MØCKE MØCLW 

Station: G2F

Class: M/S HP

QTH: Wisbech

Operating Time (hrs): 48 

Location: Northern Europe

Summary:
Band	QSOs
160:	24
80:	205
40:	589
20:	1458
15:	758
10:	430
Total:	3464	Prefixes	1311	Total Score	10,524,708

Our first attempt @ MS in WPX SSB, and the interlocking is entertaining to say the least. Friday got off to a bad start with the winch break failing on the main 26m tower when it was at about 18m @ 0730 hours, result was an injured operator and a 20m beam which was in tatters, elements and boom badly bent, after op repairs, tower repairs, winch repairs and a rebuild of the 20m beam we were in a position to start putting the radios etc together @ 1500 hrs .. I tell you this was no mean feat and required huge dedication from the engineering team (M0CKE and M0CHK, M0CHK being the injured party)!!! Our station is ad hoc and has to be set up before every large contest, this will soon change with a new shack build planned. So we were setup and ready to test @ 2100 hrs and testing commenced with no real issues so on to the start we went. LF were very poor Sat am with most of our Q's coming from 20m runs into the US during our dark hours, Saturday day conditions were reasonable but 10m never really got going with the main operations on 15 and 20m, Saturday night was better on 40m and 80m but 80m was still very poor and 160m was hardly worth the effort, Sunday morning daylight hours were hard going with no real Asia runs and conditions seemed very poor, finally Sunday afternoon the HF bands opened to NA and the runs began with good runs on 15m and 20m but 10 was still not great. We all had a great time on the contest, WX during the weekend was very windy with gusts upto 100km/h during Sunday but the antenna's all held position nicely. Good food and good company as usual make for good contests. Our aim was 10m points and 3500 Q's so we were not far off and the team was happy with the result for the first attempt .. lots to learn and some modifications to be made before next year SSB WPX :) See you all soon 

Jim M0CKE & the clan @ G2F

RSGB / IARU - March 144MHz & 432MHz Contest March 7th/8th 2015

On March 7th & 8th the RSGB & IARU R1 - 144 MHz & 432MHz International Trophy Contest took place. I was out active with The BlackSheep Contest and DX Group under the callsign "G8T" from Locator square JO01KJ and first time in several years that the Blacksheep Contest and DX group entered this contest. There was a lot of preparations to be made for this contest so I arrived on the site Thursday Night with half the group and helped the Team put together our station for the weekend. We worked hard all day Friday and finally got all antenna systems built and working by Saturday afternoon just in time for the start of the contest at 14:00UTC.

Below some pictures of the antennas we setup for this contest:

2M Shack and my Tent for sleeping

The 2M Arrays

4 x 10 Element Yagis on 2M

2 x 14 Element Yagis on 2M

6 x 3 Element Yagis on 2M

4 x 17 Element Yagis on 70cm

As for the contest conditions on the 2m band they were up towards OK/OE and F/EA on the Saturday but very flat on the Sunday and as for the 70cm band, conditions were up towards OZ/DL on the Saturday but same as 2m very flat on Sunday. 

We finished up the contest with the following claimed score:

144MHz:

695 QSO's with 397 Points Per QSO - Totaling 275,837 Points, ODX - EB1DBP @ 1136km

432MHz:

171 QSO's with 335 Points Per QSO - Totaling 57,310 Points, ODX - OZ1SKY @ 821km

Once again got to say a big Thank you to all the Team in the Blacksheep Contest group for inviting me along again to contest with them, it certainly was a fantastic experience and a great weekend. Looking forward to the next one and as always thanks to all for QSOs and the points.

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UPDATE

March 144/432 MHz 2015

The Hepburn forecast was enticing during the week leading up to the event. In the end the forecast proved optimistic. However there were enhanced conditions particularly during Saturday evening. On 144MHz many stations were working into the further reaches of DL, OE, OK and SM. Additionally there were lifts into EA between 8 and 9pm on Saturday and between 7am and 1pm on Sunday. The number of contacts made by G8T was the highest by some margin in the 16 years that I have adjudicated this contest. On 432MHz the enhanced condition were into DL and OZ.

On 144MHz 99 squares were worked. There were 15 QSOs greater than 1000kms and a further 18 QSOs between 900 and 1000kms. The best contact was between GD8EXI and EA1EWY/P at 1175kms.

On 432MHz 60 squares were active. There were 8 contacts over 800kms and a further 27 between 700 and 800kms. The best contact was between G3M and OZ9GE at 899kms.

The March contest is rarely benign weather wise and this year there were strong and gusty winds across the UK and rain affected some portable stations.

Overall entry levels rose considerably and were 48% up on 2014. Most noticeable was the increase in single operator fixed stations participating in the 24 hour section.

Congratulations go to:
The Blacksheep Contest Group, G8T, who won the open section;

Keith, G4ODA, who won the single operator fixed section;

Richard, G4WFR/P, for winning the single operator others section;

The Drowned Rats CG, M0HRF/P, who won the six-hour open section;

Richard, GD8EXI, who won the six-hour single operator fixed section for the second year running;

All other band winners and runners up, who together with stations identified, will receive certificates.

Roger Dixon, G4BVY

WRTC 2014 Documentary

WRTC 2014 Documentary from James Brooks on Vimeo.

Brendan Quest: Could it have been ISS Bounce?

A very interesting insight on Reflections on Air and Spacecrafts and also on other objects in orbits around the Earth atmosphere with Andreas DJ5AR / EI8HH:

http://www.dj5ar.de/?p=1853

http://www.dj5ar.de/?p=1862



73's DE EI5IX / M0XII - Pat

Irish Radio frequency database launched

The FrequencyDB.com Irish radio frequency database has been relaunched. The database contains over 1700 frequencies from the Island of Ireland.

The interface has been completely rewritten. They welcome any feedback so that they can improve the database.

http://www.FrequencyDB.com/database


73's DE EI5IX / M0XII - Pat

RSGB: 432MHz AFS contest on 8th February 2015

This was my first attempt at the 432MHz AFS contest and the first contest that I've entered for 2015 out portable and what a surprise it was too. This was an Affiliated Societies contest and was open to both individual entrants (who must be RSGB members), and to teams made up of a number of operators who must all be members of the same affiliated society, but not necessarily RSGB members themselves. So an affiliated group effort was required for this contest and we managed to get a team together under The Blacksheep CG which consisted of Single Fixed Operators & Portable Operators: Matt G0XDI, Roger G3MEH, John G0ODQ and Andy M3IBF including myself M0XII (Andy and I were portable under M0XII/P).

The location that was selected for going out portable for this contest was on the Isle of Sheppey in Locator Square JO01. The contest started at 09:00UTC and ended at 13:00UTC. There were flat conditions on the band with very heavy QSB at times, we also has some power issues (flat battery & SWR / Power meter going kaput on us) but we limped through the contest anyway. The weather conditions were pleasant for the duration of the contest which made dealing with some of the issues we had a lot easier.

We finished the contest under M0XII/P with a claimed score of 16,689 points at 214 points per QSO. We managed to work 78 QSO's and 8 DXCC's and 19 WWL's. Our ODX was 572Km with GM4PPT, I would like to thank Dick GM4PPT for his patience in completing this contact as QSB had a major part to play during our QSO.

I would like to extend a big Thank You to my fellow Blacksheep CG Team members; 

Matt G0XDI, Roger G3MEH, John G0ODQ and Andy M3IBF for not only the loan of some equipment for this contest but for their commitment, group effort and participation in this contest and I look forward to doing more with these guys in future contests.

The equipment we used out portable was an FT847, 100w Linear Amplifier and a 21 element F9FT Tonna Antenna about 5m from ground.

A Map of our QSO's in this contest is here: 

http://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/vhfresults.pl?kml=2015/3ALgupdmz85tu3PsdNA8u2kRA0T7ccS

UPDATE:
Congratulations goes to the Blacksheep Contest Group who won the G0ODQ Trophy by a good margin.  Second place goes to Camb-Hams, who were not far ahead of their rivals from Bristol Contest Group in third place.

The Aftermath of CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW 2014

Contest: CQWW-CW 2014 (November 29th - 30th)

Call: EI5IX

Operator: EI5IX / M0XII
Class: SAAB LP
QTH: Westport
Operating Time (hrs): 37.5
Summary: (Once Dupes etc. were removed)

       Band's   QSOs   Zones  Countries

--------------------------------------------

160:      12          3            6

80:       272        15         53

40:       375        16         58

20:       226        22         61

15:       210        27         68

10:       305        26         66

--------------------------------------------

Total:  1400      109       312

Total Score = 1,044,080

My plans for CQWW-CW were a bit ‘last minute’ this year, I decided early on the Friday to enter as a Low Power Assisted Single Operator on All Bands. I drove back from London to the Irish QTH on Wednesday Night arriving early Thursday morning. Once I had a nap for a few hours it was then time to get out with my Dad (EI9JA) and my Sister (EI1588) and start making antenna preparations for the contest at the weekend. The weather on the Thursday and early Friday was nice and dry so this helped us raise Verticals and Dipoles and even get a HEX beam up for the contest. 

Once everything was up and tested by late Friday evening it was time to grab something to eat and grab a quick nap before the contest. I was woken up by my Dad with 30 minutes to spare before the contest, so a quick dash of Tea and I was on-air Saturday 00:00, opened up the contest on 40m and immediately hit good rates at +170/h. The move to 80m around 01:30 was very productive although hard work to North America then back to 40m at 03:00. A quick jump up to 20m for some early Multipliers was nice then back to 80m and 40m for some Grey line activity. Once the sun had came up I found 15m and 10m quiet fruitful and got some nice runs on these bands. Busting pile ups with 100w and a simple set up is challenging but that is the thrill of the game, I thought conditions were in excellent shape for the weekend so at 18:00 on Saturday I was beginning to fatigue a bit and decided to grab a nap for a few hours and refuelled the body. I returned on-air at 21:00 on 20m as this band was in great shape into the late evening. 80m and 160m were the bands of choice until 03:00 then a jump over to 40m until Grey Line on Sunday morning on the higher bands 20m, 15m & 10m. I remained on these bands for most of the day with a nice break on 40m towards 18:00 unfortunately at 20:30 Sunday evening I had to physically stop contesting an I so wanted to continue and would have possibly improved my Total score by a bit more but I had a Migraine Headache from Hell and couldn't continue. I took some pain killers and went to bed. :-( I was happy to have finished the contest setting a new record score in EI for a SAAB-LP entry, there was some nice DX around throughout the weekend also.

I got to say I really enjoyed this contest, it was a fantastic experience it was also great to see how the newly built shack and the antennas that were put up for the weekend preformed, again a lot's of things learnt from this time around but the great news is that my home QTH station is slowly improving so hopefully I can make the extra improvements required and get the station working more efficiently in years to come, who knows it would be great to enter other sections of this contest in years to come.

I'd like to thank my Family for putting up with me throughout the weekend especially to my Dad (EI9JA) and my Sister Shauna (EI1588) for helping me get the station together and operational for the contest and for the many cups of Tea that were required to keep me awake for the weekend. Thank You :-)

Equipment Used:
IC7200, LDG AT11MP Tuner, Begali Magnetic Pro Key, WinKeyer 3, N1MM Logger+
Ant switch, HEX Beam @ 45ft, Carolina Windom 80, 1/4 waver Verticals 10m/15m/20m/40m & 80m, Inverted L for 160m. Loops for LF RX.

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Delighted to have come 1st place and set a new Irish Record in the Single Op Assisted Low Power All Bands category, as always thanks to CQ Magazine for holding and adjudicating this contest and thanks to everyone that gave me points during the contest, I look forward to the next one! :)

73's DE EI5IX / M0XII - Pat

G8T - 144MHz IARU / RSGB Trophy Contest from JO01KJ - September 2014

On September 6th & 7th the RSGB & IARU R1 - 144 MHz International Trophy Contest took place. I was out active with The BlackSheep Contest and DX Group under the callsign "G8T" from Locator square JO01KJ. 

The G8T Station

I arrived on the site Friday morning and helped the Team put together our station for the weekend. We worked hard and got all antenna systems built and working by the Friday evening.

4x10ele + 6x3ele + 4x9ele + 2x14ele

G8T Team raising a Pipe Mast with 4x9ele

This contest was eventful more so than usual, despite testing our new pre-amplifier failed and had to be repaired. Luckily it was installed on our Versatower which allowed it to be lowered and raised again without too much effort! 

60ft Versatower on the way down

Later the bearings failed in the alternator of old faithful 2-cylinder diesel generator that the Team have been using for 25+ years! The backup petrol generator was unreliable also and we didn't have enough power for the radio station and the cook house! Fortunately the farmer of the site had a spare John Deere 6330 tractor and a 25KVA 3-phase PTO generator that we were able to use (after fixing it). :-) 

2-Cylinder Diesel Generator

John Deere 6330 Tractor and a 25KVA 3-phase PTO Generator

We had an intermittent connection in the TX IF drive to the Transverter which lost us nearly 2 hours during set up as we couldn't get any power out of the station, then during the contest the logging computer (laptop) decided that it was imperative to reboot at 10am on Sunday morning in order to install Microsoft updates and went off-line for 25 minutes forcing us to do a session of paper logging, nothing like going old school in the heat of battle:-)

Tim G4LOH operating the station

Bill M0BTZ in the heat of Battle...

As for Band conditions they seemed flat or slightly above average, some useful propagation to HB9 and southern France was welcome. We also managed QSOs in to OK, OE and SM and Mike G8TIC worked S57LM on a long meteor burst (over 30 seconds at 59+) around time of the reported asteroid pass and meteorite strike in Nicaragua.

We finished this contest in 2nd place with 773 QSO's and 319,629 Points our ODX was S57LM at 1,162Km, Thanks again to everybody who called us throughout the weekend during the contest.

Once again got to say a big Thank you to the guys of the Blacksheep Contest group for inviting me along again to contest with them, it certainly was a fantastic experience on 144MHz I'm looking forward to the next one. 
73's

Great News for 70MHz (4m)

Spotted this in the IRTS newsletter:

Some time back Dave EI3IO launched an initiative to try to secure a line in the European Common frequency Allocation table (ECA) that would provide for the granting of spectrum in the segment 69.9 to 70.5 MHz to the amateur service on a secondary basis and to amend Footnote EU9 to the table to state that CEPT administrations may allocate all or parts of that band to the Amateur service . The documentation which Dave drafted, which included briefing for National Societies, was adopted by IARU Region 1 and support was obtained from Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Iceland and Ireland. The documentation explained that about thirty CEPT administrations had already allowed national amateur use of the band but that some remaining CEPT countries required a clear regulatory decision before they were able to open all, or parts of this band to secondary two-way amateur usage.

Dave EI3IO, representing IARU Region 1, presented the proposal at the recent meeting in France of CEPT's European Communications Committee Frequency Management Working Group. The proposal received the support of more than ten CEPT administrations and was adopted. This excellent outcome does not necessarily mean that frequencies between 69.9 and 70.5 MHz will be immediately available in all CEPT countries but it does, however, provide a clear basis for IARU member societies to seek a 4 metre allocation from their national licensing authority.

The ECA is approved, revised and published by the ECC once per year. It is expected that the revision incorporating the changes regarding 70 MHz will be published in the summer of 2015. This is another excellent example of what can be achieved by amateurs working together within the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU).



73's DE EI5IX / M0XII - Pat

M0XII/P - UKAC 50MHz Contest - October

The October UKAC 50Mhz Contest on the 28th from locator square IO91MP was hard going with very deep QSB on the band. I had an issue with my voice keyer (LogiTalker) these last few contests as it seems to suffer terribly on the 6m band with RFI, I've tried various things to get rid of the RF feedback, ferrite rings to grounding the unit to changing the feed cable to the unit from the rig which in my opinion is a bit dodgy anyway but certainly not having a voice keyer in a contest is beginning to become very annoying and I do need to get it sorted (Voice is on its last legs). Anyway sure this is what the fun is all about we will struggle on (If anyone has suggestions on eliminating RFI on a LogiTalker please email me: ei5ixpat at gmail.com)

Activity seemed reasonably good in this contest compared to previous months. I managed to get 7 DXCC's this months contest with the final one (Belgium) right on the line but there was a lot of QSB on the band. 

This month I finished the contest with a claimed score of 107 QSO's and 16 UK Multiplier squares and a total of 220,592 claimed points with 7 DXCC entities worked. It was really nice to work Dave GI4SNA in IO64XM Square as my furthest ODX of 467Km, Once again a big Thank you to all stations for the points and multipliers this month it was very much appreciated. Looking forward to the next contest. :)

My working conditions was an FT847 Transceiver with 100 watts into a 5 Element Tonna F9FT Yagi up 5m from Ground.

Here is a map of the QSO's made during the Contest: