[UK-CONTEST] SSB FD GI0AAA/P

[g3wvg at btinternet.com]

Hiya All

 

Shortened "Three As Contest Group" SSB FD Report (expletives deleted)

 

I haven't read much about your SSB FD exploits, but here's mine. If there is
was to be a prize for the daftest entry I think I would qualify.

For various reasons our group (Three As Contest Group) were not all
available to do a "serious" entry this year, so I thought I'd try a one man
entry.   Nigel G3TXF had family commitments and Steve GW4BLE was commendably
busy introducing his local club GW6GW/P to the art of contesting.

  We generally like to travel to different places for our field days. We had
only ever been to Northern Ireland once before (for CW NFD) and the location
we used wasn't brilliant.  So, thinking I might find a good location for
next years CW NFD, I decided to take a look at Rathlin Island off the coast
of Northern Ireland.

Early on Saturday morning I left Heathrow with an Icom706, an ATU and
mini-computer in my hand luggage. In my checked baggage was a fibreglass
spiderbeam pole with guy ropes, stakes  and an 80M doublet with open
wire-feeder.

The weather wasn't brilliant and on arrival in Belfast it seemed quite
breezy.  It seemed even breezier on the tiny car ferry to Rathlin. And by
the time I had driven to the exposed East Headland of Rathlin it was very
windy indeed!

Putting up a mast on my own in my back garden in Surrey had seemed a trivial
exercise. This was not the case on Rathlin. So to cut a long story short
after several mast collapses and a couple of moves I eventually settled for
using fewer mast sections giving an 8 high metre support. There were no end
of problems with RF getting into the audio (never a problem on CW!) but
eventually everything sort of worked.  I had also taken a small petrol
generator but had some severe noise issues on HF so in the end used the 12
volt supply from the car.

The ICOM 706 was in the glove compartment with croc clips to the battery and
the lap-top was,well, on my lap.   The hire car was a Skoda Diesel and ran
faultlessly and economically as a combined 12 volt generator and central
heating device!

I guess I was active for about 15 hours in total.  At about an hour before
the end of the contest it stopped raining so I packed up early to avoid
getting drenched, then headed for the ferry and then onto Belfast to fly
back to London.

In the end I made only just over 380 QSOs with some good runs on 20 Metres.
It may not sound like fun but it was in fact a great trip and as ever I
learned a lot.

 

Would I go back to that exact location for CW NFD? ..definitely not.  But I
think I've indentified somewhere else on the Island that might just be
suitable.

 

Nigel G3TXF has put together some pictures on his excellent website

 

http://www.g0aaa.com/GI0AAA-Sep09/GI0AAA-SSB-09.html

 

 

73 all from  Ian G3WVG (aka GI0AAA/P Three As Contest Group).