[UK-CONTEST] RSGB 160m Club Calls - M5ARC/P

[James Hill]

Well, let me be the first!

The "usual suspects" from the club had other arrangements this year, so 
that opened the way for us "juniors" to have a go with the club callsign!.

Things went rather well, we began to set up at around lunchtime, and 
this time, bought along a keen amateur archer with his hardware, to help 
launch the string over the trees (easier said than done with the wind 
that we had!), which supported the ends of a full length dipole, with 
the centre at 60', tuned to 1885KHz.

Owing to the fact that this contest is a primarily paper logged affair 
(we used a laptop running SD to give us the "bare bones"), I decided to 
give my FT-101ZD MKIII a run out.

All went well, noise was quite low to begin with, but as the rain came 
down, some nearby 11KV powerlines started giving one or two problems, 
but nothing that major, as signals were usually in the +20 and over 
region. We worked EI, DL, GI, PA & GM, as well as the G crowd.

Things were that good, we found a QRG about 10 minutes before the start, 
and sat there for the duration, only moving a few hundred Hz, to avoid 
some splatter. A good time was had in the caravan, with my co operator 
suddenly, and for no apparent reason, bursting into fits of totally 
uncontrollable laughter.... indeed, one station said we sounded the 
happiest station on the band!

Anyway, the facts:

Total QSO's :131
Dupes: 2
Total Club Stations: 32
Total Club Members: 81
Total Non Club: 16

Claimed Score: 1592

A good time was had by all, and hopefully, we'll get the opportunity to 
have a go again next year!

James G0FHM