[UK-CONTEST] BERU 2008 - some late comments - 5X1NH

[Nick Henwood]

A late contribution as I was in 5X for a month and not long back.
For a variety of reasons I had to make a restricted section entry - had hoped to be using a beam. However a very simple inverted vee dipole at about 40 feet did quite well. It had links for each band which meant staggering around in the  dark with a torch trying to adjust the right links. Great site in Western Uganda near the Ruwenzori mountains.
Big disappointment was the high level of static. A thunderstorm started at about 1500 UTC  and rolled around all night. Made life very difficult on the lower bands. 80 m was virtually unusable - very  frustrating being able to hear other Africa stations stacking up points - but hardly anything else. 40 m had reasonable propagation but the static crashes made it hard work getting serial numbers. Had to close twice when lightning was striking in the near neighbourhood.
Also had some power problems - but it could have been much worse. Used a car battery (in my hire car) for the last 6 hours or so (need to solve the laptop power problem for next year). K2/100 worked excellently.
Thoroughly enjoyed the contest although some persistent callers outside the Commonwealth were tedious (especially as I had been so active for the 2 previous weeks). Very sorry not to work ZL but did look.  Delighted that 15 m decided to perform better than for some time and 10 m gave the odd flash of life - might have been more than a flash with a beam.
CU next year. 73 Nick G3RWF/5X1NH