[UK-CONTEST] Fwd: Re GW7HOA/P

[Don Field]

This is a follow-on to Adrian MW1LCR's posting. As Justin G4TSH pointed out,
this forum is not the place to make an official complaint to the Contest
Committee, And it is unfortunate that Adrian made his public posting without
contacting the group that he was accusing. It is also unfortunate that
Adrian threatens deliberate QRM, in breach of his licence.

I contacted Dave M0OBW, of the GW7HOA/P team, and he has asked me to post
his side of the story, below.

Don G3XTT
Contest Committee Chairman

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dave Wilson <dwilson at btinternet.com>
Date: 2009/8/17
Subject: Re GW7HOA/P
To: Don Field <don.field at gmail.com>


 Hi Don,



Thanks for that but I think there are some crossed wires somewhere.  We’ve
had dealings with Adrian in the past, his reputation with many Amateurs in
this area is very poor he’s fleeced people, promised things and never
delivered etc -  maybe he’s spied his chance to have a pop again.



Let’s go back to the start.  An amateur who lives in Llangollen, who’s a
member of our radio club, suggested we might like to think about using the
top of the hill where he often transmits from – we said OK but rather than
use the lay-by could we see about putting a tent in the field and operating
from there.  The guy then found out who owned the field and gave us his
phone number.  I rang him up and asked if it would be possible to do as
explained.  He saw no problem with it but as there was a bit of confusion as
to exactly which field it was we/he was talking about it was decided that
Kath and another member of the club would go up there on the Saturday before
the contest to suss things out.  As it turns out the farmer wasn’t around
when Kath was there but they worked out which field it was – not the field
with the mast in.



All  was subsequently confirmed on the phone, permission was given and Kath
and a few others turned up the Tuesday afternoon to set up.  Before they
actually went to the field they called at the farmers house and introduced
themselves and the farmer actually took them to the field – by the way not
the one that Adrian is talking about.    We did the contest, had a good
time, and you’ve probably seen the video on YouTube.



I’ve literally just spoken with the farmer who said he’d chatted to Adrian
but Adrian had got it all wrong – he said that years ago he did have
problems but not as Adrian described it.  What it was the farmer had had
requests to use his field for contests and he’d agreed.  The problem came
when the landlord, they are only tenant farmers, drove past the field one
day and saw tents on the site and wrote to Eifan (not sure of the spelling)
saying that it wasn’t in his agreement to have tents in his field – he
thought he was charging rent to site a tent there.  As a consequence he
stopped that group using the site.  Eifan has just confirmed that he was
quite happy with us being there that night.  I arrived around 7 o’clock
before the contest started and while I never actually spoke to Eifan I saw
him doing something at the top of the field by the gate, I was about to walk
up and introduce myself but as I did he’d finished what he was doing and got
in his tractor and made his way down the lane, I waved and he waved back
quite happy.



Eifan did make some comments tonight about Adrian but they’re not relevant
to this particular issue.



So Adrian’s statements about “turning up out of the blue, the farmer was
somewhat peeved, setting up before asking permission etc” are all  totally
inaccurate.



I trust you’ll post this on the CC reflector and I look forward to a full
apology from Adrian.



Best 73

Dave, M0OBW