[UK-CONTEST] UK-Contest Digest, Vol 42, Issue 11... NFD G5XV/P

[G0ORH at aol.com]

Hi All
>From the camp of G5XV/P Newbury RC.
A somewhat disaster this year on 160m. We needed to space our wires as they  
were winding around each other at the tee piece when being hauled up. Yours  
truly found a broken fibreglass fishing pole section lying in the bottom of a  
boat (It was a sea rod) This was duly attached to the dipole with tape. 
Started  off ok on 160m then things started going pear-shape. Very high swr. So high 
we  could not tune it. We abandoned the band much to our disappointment.
Later on, during tear down, it was noticed that the fishing pole had burn  
marks where it was taped to the dipole lengths. G3RVM, did some tests on the  
broken bit of pole only to find it had a thin layer of carbon on the inside  
making it conductive!
 
In contrast 28Mhz was a dream. in fact most of our operating during the  
weekend was on ten with Sporadic e qso's. Saturday, on close of band at  18:45hrs 
we had about 190 qso's on Ten. Our strategy was if Ten was open  then we would 
concentrate our efforts their for Sunday. With double points it  made a lot 
of sense. The club purchased a new Force 12 beam from GW3YDX at Vine  
Antenna's, and we used it for the first time in NFD open section. On Sunday,  very 
early, the band opened up but their was hardly any G's on only DL's  & S5's, etc., 
etc. In the afternoon Avril, 2E0KOP (former call M3KIE)  our new member of 
the team, and working her first RSGB NFD contest,  Worked Fred, K3ZO signalling 
a good opening to NA.
All-in-all considering Murphy's Law, a good NFD and WX for the NADARS  team. 
Our thanks to the XYL's doing the cooking, & helpers who always  turn out to 
erect the station, and tear-down afterwards. We have a good spread  of CW 
operators at our club & by next year 7 more cw operators will be up  and running 
thanks to NADARS club for sponsoring my Morse classes in Newbury.  They say 
Morse is dying, not in Newbury!
The morale of the story is, always check the properties of unknown  spreaders 
even if it looks like a plain old fibreglass insulator!
 
Op's were: Avril, 2E0KOP, Richard, G3ZGC, Ian, G3RVM, Danny, G3XVR, Ken,  
G0ORH
Paul, G3WYW did not operate due to Yaesu business.
 
Station layout: -  FT1000MP, 160m dipole, 40/80m dipoles, Force 12  beam, 
Jenny powered. tents.
Band QSO's
 
160m=55, 80m=163, 40m=121, 20m=387, 15m=116, 10m=386..qso's  Total..1148.
 
Ken..G0ORH