[UK-CONTEST] MZ5B Shetland CQWW CW

[Ian G3WVG]

Hiya Guys 

Thanks to all those who called me at MZ5B this weekend.  I did 80M Single
Band (no dx cluster).  Conditions were not too bad considering the highish k
index. Weather conditions however, were appalling (worse than last year).
Here is an extract from the shipping forecast .....
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Fair Isle, issued on Sunday 25 November 2007 at 0345
     Northwesterly storm force 10 decreasing severe gale force 9 imminent.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I wasn't in a ship, but I was in a lighthouse on the edge of a 150ft cliff
so it amounted to the same result, minus seasickness!

Lots of broken antenna wires and bent a Butternut, but I was able to stay on
the air and only missed an hour on the Saturday night fixing a broken dipole
end.  Steve GW4BLE had kindly volunteered to come on the trip to help with
antenna rigging etc and he was uncomplaining when I woke him up at 3 am to
get him out in the storm to find the end of the 80M dipole.  We did find it
..it was flapping around at 40ft above our heads, and illuminated every 15
seconds by the flash of the lighthouse.  In an amazing stoke of luck the
wind dropped for a second and the weight of the insulator caused the end to
drop at exactly the same moment as the light shone , we grabbed the end and
tied it off at ground level.  It stayed like that until daybreak when I was
able to fix it a little higher.

The antenna set up was quite simple. Just a Butternut and an inverted vee at
40 ft so I wasn't ever going to be a big signal, nevertheless it was great
fun and I was quite pleased with the result.
Raw scores ..1558 qsos, 23 zones, 108 counties...Lots of DX mults were heard
but not worked, I just didn't have the oomph.

Steve did a single band 28Mhz entry using MZ5A. The idea was that it would
give him something to do during the day when I was sleeping.  In the end it
wasn't too productive.  8 qsos, 3 zones and 6 countries. And to add insult
to injury, the 10M antenna was snapped off by the wind!  Even so, he now
holds the record for top 28MHz SOAB score for Shetland.

The WebMeister Nigel has already loaded some of Steve's pix on to his
excellent G3TXF website.  Take a look at....
 
http://www.g3txf.com/dxtrip/MZ5B-07/MZ5B-07.html

Again thanks to Steve for his great help in the atrocious conditions and to
Nigel for the website. 

73 Ian G3WVG  

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