[UK-CONTEST] NFD

[peter Jackson]

Because it was once fed with coax as a single band antenna for 160M. Pete 
G3KNU
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Callum M0MCX" <callum at mccormick.uk.com>
To: <uk-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 3:50 PM
Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] NFD


>>>>I would never think of using any other contesting program
>
> Never say never :)
>
> By the way - is the length of a doublet critical? My new ATU tunes 
> anything
> so why exactly 264 feet..?
>
> Callum McCormick
> M0MCX
> 07976 631881
> http://www.m0mcx.co.uk/
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com
> [mailto:uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of peter Jackson
> Sent: 07 June 2007 23:15
> To: uk contesting
> Subject: [UK-CONTEST] NFD
>
> Hi, there seems to be a lack of NFD reports this year, maybe everyone is
> still recovering. So here is a report of the Scunthorpe Steel ARC G4FUH/P.
> This year due to lack of manpower we entered the restricted section, BTW 
> who
> the devil organised "Train the Trainers" at Finningley radio club in
> Sandtoft on the first day of NFD? this robbed us of two of our helpers.
> The weather was fantastic, temperature in the caravan reached 29c on
> Saturday. I feel sorry for the Irish lads as we had that weather the
> previous weekend when we provided the communications for a local 
> Triathlon,
> what a difference a week can make.
> Sporadic E was way down on last years with only 41 Q's on 10M these were
> worked in the first hour and despite frequent visits and sending a few 
> cq's
> we didn't work any more.
> Our antenna was 264ft doublet 60 ft of which was horizontal at 10M with 
> the
> ends sloping down to the ground running East West, fed with open wire
> feeders and tuned with an auto ATU built by Les G4OGB from a design in
> Radcom. This worked brilliantly, press the bandchange on the rig one tap 
> on
> the key and you are ready to go. This enabled us to make many more band
> changes than we normally would have done, and it certainly improved our
> score.
> The caravan was given to us by one of our members Dave M0NEY and Stan 
> G3RRL
> made us an operating table at one end. The van has a cooker and fridge, it
> was like operating from home!
> We like to make NFD into a social occasion for all the club members. Tom
> G4JRY supplies all the food, beefburgers on the first day and fish and 
> chips
> from the chippy Saturday evening. Breakfast on Sunday morning is a full
> English AH the smell of sizzling burgers sausage bacon and eggs wafting
> through the cool early morning air makes the saliva glands run. His wife
> cooks Goulash for Sunday lunch and we have a choice of red or white wines,
> not the posh stuff that Chris G3SJJ drinks, sorry Chris couldn't help 
> that!
> it comes from the supermarket.
> You might think after all that we don't treat NFD seriously but we do, but
> with only three ops it's hard work with two of us well into our 70's.
> We made 904 Q's which to us ain't bad. Best DX VK8AV on 40M Saturday
> afternoon. No real problems except for a bit of rf getting into the system
> on 20M which sometimes, after sending /P it sent a train of P's.
> SD worked fine as usual I would never think of using any other contesting
> program.
> I enjoy working the night shift, I feel tired up to 2.00am then get a 
> second
> wind, but oh boy do I sleep well Sunday night, sleep like a log wake up in
> the fireplace, ( apologies to Tommy Cooper)
> 73 Pete G3KNU
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