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.

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

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.

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

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:

The Aftermath of CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB 2014

The following is from Jim M0CKE:

Call: G2F
Operator(s): M0CKE M0CHK M0XII M0NKR G0FHM
Station: G2F

Class: M/2 HP
QTH: Wisbech
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160:    198       8        41
80:      456      14       69
40:      837      21       92
20:    1317      37      124
15:    1184      36      115
10:    1593      34      138
------------------------------
Total: 5585 150 579 Total Score = 7,755,831

Club: Wisbech Amateur Radio & Electronics Club

Comments:

After a plea on the UK contest reflector for operators we were joined by Pat

M0XII (EI5IX) and Andy M0NKR both looking for a SSB seat for 2014 :) .. Friday got off to a good start with nice weather setting up the station, setup was complete when the rain came and along with it the realisation that the 6x2 antenna switch was not working .. after diagnosis a trip to maplin for some 4011 IC's and 2N3906 transistors we finally got the switch working at about 2000hrs .. Pat and Andy tested the station and all was looking good. This is first time we have entered the M2 category in SSB and really didn't know what to expect from our QTH. Contest started slow with conditions on 40 and 80 being hard to say the least with crammed band and poor signal quality as expected, we just ploughed on, working what we could hear, doing some s&p when run rates had dropped and changed bands when conditions seemed to allow, not a winning strategy but we all had fun, ate lots of good food and had a few beers too :) 

I'm really pleased with how the contest went for our first attempt with very modest antennas and power allowed in the UK, although the aging hunter 1000 amp on station 2 decided to track over on the band switch on 80m band with couple hours to go .. so Pat stopped on 20m and 40m with station 2 .. We seemed to have a flare hit us about 2100hrs causing the bands to become real hard work with very high noise levels and fading signals.

2 x Elecreaft K3's, Acom 1000, Hunter 1000, N1MM Logger+, 5B4AGN Filters, 6x2

Ant switch, 3ele SteppIR @ 60ft, KT34A @ 60ft, 1/4 waver vert 40m & 80m, inverted L for 160m. K9AY for LF RX.

Thanks to everyone that called us! :)

Jim M0CKE 

I got to say I certainly enjoyed this contest and thanks to the Jim M0CKE and Andy M0CHK for giving me the opportunity to join them in this contest, I'm Looking forward to CQWW CW back in EI (Ireland) at the end of November, more updates to come on that station in the coming weeks.

73's to all :)

UPDATE

***************

WE CAME IN 1st PLACE IN THE MULTI TWO CATEGORY IN THIS CONTEST IN ENGLAND

***************

73's DE EI5IX / M0XII - Pat

The SSB CQ World Wide DX Contest 2014

This weekend the 25th & 26th of October is the CQ World Wide DX Contest on SSB. 

The contest Starts: 0000 UTC Saturday 25th and Ends: 2359 UTC Sunday 26th

I will be active this weekend with Wisbech Amateur Radio Club under the callsign "G2F" located on the East coast of England in the district of Cambridgeshire.

I'm hoping to give a bash to SSB on the HF bands throughout the weekend so hopefully conditions will prevail, if you hear us on the air do feel free to give us a shout as it would be great to work you over the weekend. Good Luck to all participants involved in the contest and most of all have fun on the bands and a fantastic weekend contesting.

73's

ATV Activity

Ronnie EI9ED reports that EI2SDR is sending pictures of Dublin Bay on frequency 2390 MHz from 3 Rock Mountain. It is on test and orientated towards Dublin and Dundalk. Rx Input 1240 MHz and will be available next with DTMF Control via 144.775.

RSGB CONTEST COMMITTEE NEWSLETTER - SPECIAL ISSUE

A special issue of the CC Newsletter, timed to coincide with the RSGB Convention, has just been published on the CC website at

http://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/newsletter/newscurrent.shtml




73's DE EI5IX / M0XII - Pat

The West of Ireland's Mayo Radio Rally 2014

Sunday 12th of October 2014

The Mayo Radio Experimenter's Network Radio Rally

Check out the clubs Website (www.ei7mre.org) 

for equipment already checked in for sale that can be purchased on the day. 

The 5MHz Newsletter

It's been found necessary to change the URL of the Worldwide 5 MHz Amateur Allocations chart.

The new URL is

http://tinyurl.com/pjhd943

Sherwood Engineering ranks the Flex - 6700 SDR

Rob Sherwood has now tested and ranked the new FlexRadio Systems 6700 transceiver on his benchmark receiver test data page. 

The ‘6700 tops the list when sorted by third-order dynamic range, narrow spaced. 

Click here to view the results.