[UK-CONTEST] Domineering VHF Contest Stations

[James Hill]

Ron Price wrote:
> I don't think we should trivialise the importance of including the 
> FM/vertical antenna operators in the contest calendar.

Very true....

How many people out there have FT-847/847/897 TS2K etc etc in the shack, 
but havent got the finances or even the necessary "permissions" (from 
XYL or other) to put a beam up?

I fall into that category! I have a Comet GP9 vertical for FM work, but 
it would perform very well on SSB no doubt, if there were other like 
minded/polarised stations!. I'm not allowed Beams (Boss says so!), and 
short of a few of the "big boys" semi locally, I can hear/work nobody on 
2m or 70cm SSB. I suppose a Halo loop would be an option to get me 
horizontal, but it entails hiring a ladder, clamping the halo to a 15' 
pole (above gutter height), drilling yet another hole in the soffit 
board, and then having to contend with 10" of insulation in the loft 
when running the coax through, to drop it through the ceiling (yet 
another hole!) into the shack. In short, a lot of inconvenience, and 
probably a lot of verbal from "she who must be obeyed", whose tolerance 
already gets stretched to the limits with matters of RF!

So, a vertical category would be nice, and maybe, just maybe there may 
be a few more participants.

I'm not sure about the 2m FM element though..... The FM Simplex channels 
round here are already quite busy, and even running at 12.5KHz spacing, 
with the "average" dual bander, problems can occur with strong stations 
12.5KHz away, so I'd hazard a guess at plenty of unrest among the 
Simplex crowd. It's bad enough during a good tropo event to find a clear 
frequency on FM, let alone a contest. Although probably a small event 
say 1.5 hours on a Sunday afternoon or similar may just stimulate some 
activity.. particularly on 70cm, where all the activity appears to be 
repeater based! I've had some good "DX" on 70cm FM from Norfolk (Adrian 
MW1LCR being one) under apparently flat condx, so you never know!

My 2 pennorth!

James G0FHM

-- 
Skype: g0fhm_uk