[UK-CONTEST] February UKAC on 1,296MHz

[Ray James]

Plenty of contest activity about last night.
15 contacts in the first 90 minutes was a pleasant surprise only to be dashed with 3 in the final hour.
Exceeded 500Km on 8 occasions but nothing heard from GI, IO82/IO93 so multipliers were down.
Signals up in most directions with John G4EAT near Chelmsford very strong yet John G3XDY in Ipswich was inaudible via tropo and the contact totally dependent on a couple of convenient aircraft reflections.
ODX was Kjeld OZ1FF in JO45BO at 782km. We had tried earlier in the contest for an aircraft assisted contact and heard nothing either way, only to find a tropo duct materialise late on that enabled an easy contact.
Ed GM3SBC on the banks of the Forth worked Kjeld just prior to me and reported freezing fog had just appeared over the North Sea at the time.
Such fluke openings always add extra interest to contests on microwaves.
Cumulated distance worked, 6,898Km.

QSO Map http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.rsgbcc.org/vhf/kml_files/2010/CH8ImyE1LcWquhdvyPmmkW5M7Twtdah

73 Ray GM4CXM IO75TW
150w 4x44 + LNA.