[UK-CONTEST] G5XV/P

Wed Jun 10 04:01:50 PDT 2009

Unfortunately, Newbury & G5XV/P open section, had to settle on a check-log
entry this year. At 12:30 on Saturday the team fired up the genny only to
find no volts being delivered. A fault was traced to a broken toggle switch
which switches from 110v - 230v. All local hire centre's were closed by then
so no replacement could be found. We were on the side of a quarry this year
as the owner wanted his grass intact for hay. Our normal field lay some way
off. We had to settle for this location as no other site was available to
us. Fortunately mains power was available via the weigh bridge. In fact a
group of eco warriors were camped on site and they were paying for the power
so we hooked up to their supply, at a cost!!
It seemed a waste just to break the station down after the teams hard work
putting the station together so we decided to run NFD under full rules etc,
albeit with mains power and put in a check-log instead.
We were disappointed to say the least but we had fun working friends
everywhere so we were in good company!
Nice to know the dx were looking for us also, Mike, VP8NO amongst them.
WX, rain rain and more rain!

Station FT2000, 10, 15, 20m beam, dipoles 160m, 40/80m. Win-Test.

Operators:- Avril M0KOP, Dave G3KLH, Ian G3RVM, Ken G0ORH.
Help and support, Steve M0SXP, Neil G4SHF, G3LLK club president, support &
his (Sunday breakfast!)

QSO's

160m = 173
80m  = 173
40m  = 241
20m  = 400
15m  =  76
10m  = 142

Total = 1210

Ken..G0ORH...Newbury & District NFD contest coordinator 

As a point of interest we are doing a re-wire eliminating the toggle switch
so the genny just delivers 230v hopefully we won't have this situation
again. May be worth others to follow suit if you haven't done so 
already!!

-----Original Message-----
From: uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Don Beattie
Sent: 10 June 2009 09:21
To: Uk-Contest at Contesting.Com
Subject: [UK-CONTEST] NFD 2009 - G3BJ/P - Restricted section

A few weeks ago, Chris, G3SJJ, suggested that the two of us might enter NFD
this year. I had not done NFD for about ten years, and so we decided to give
it a go. I still had the doublet G4DQW and I had used in the 90's from
Oxfordshire, and Chris provided a tent and table and second computer. We
decided to use a corner of the field here, supporting half the doublet with
an 11 m mast, and a convenient tree, the second half running from the pole
to nearly ground level. My recollection was that we were able to use the
antenna tuner in the FT1000MP to handle the mis-match on all bands.

Chris arrived at around 11 am on the Saturday, by which time the antenna was
up and the generator positioned. With the tent erected, we started to
configure the station, only to find we had big problems with our computers.
We planned to use the "big knob-little knob" means of S&P, which really
meant we needed two logging computers. For some reason the Win-Test network
would not play, and we spent too long fixing that (fixed 20 minutes before
the start). We then found that we had a conflict between the USB:Serial
driver for the CAT and that for the WK-USB. So we had no option but to ditch
the WK-USB interface on the problem computer. This lost us some time at the
start. By then, the Shropshire weather had closed in, and the rain was
incessant until about 11.00 on the Sunday. Just after dawn on Sunday the
antenna broke in the strong gusting winds - again about 20 minutes lost.
Then to crown it all the generator failed 80 minutes before the end with
what turned out to be an oile
 d plug (and no plug spanner to hand). By that time, the weather had dried
(even the tent was dry) and we took things apart and retreated indoors.

So it turned out to be one of those "learning experiences". For next year,
we will start earlier configuring things, and will have a new plug in the
genny !

And the radio conditions ? Oh yes, conditions seemed quite good, although
out here on the Welsh Marches, we heard precious little on ten metres.
160-20 were the banker bands and we had one glorious three minute spell when
we were running on 20m when we were called by W, VE, VP8NO (thanks Mike) a
9V1 and a VR2/P. The FT1000MP/doublet worked well and the auto-tuner handled
it all.

Despite the very cold weather and huge quantities of rain, it was fun.
Without the technical issues, we might have done quite well, so there is
everything to play for next year !

Thanks to all for the QSOs. Here's the end result:

G3BJ/P NFD 2009 - Restricted section

Operators: G3BJ and G3SJJ

Equipment: FT1000MP + doublet, Win-Test logging.

 BAND   QSO DUP DXC  POINTS   AVG 

----------------------------------

  160   121   0  16     904  7.47 

   80   181   1  27     594  3.28 

   40   254   4  30     786  3.09 

   20   385   3  48    1135  2.95 

   15   119   0  31     356  2.99 

   10    36   0  16     214  5.94 

----------------------------------

TOTAL  1096   8 168    3989  3.64 

==================================

       TOTAL SCORE : 3 989

73,

Don, G3BJ

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