[UK-CONTEST] NFD Norfolk Amateur Radio Club

[g3pdh]

Norfolk ARC, based in Norwich operated 2 stations in NFD, the A Station in
the Open section and a QRP station. In addition we also took part in the 6m
Sporadic E contest.  To involve families and other non CW club members we
ran a 'Radio-Active' weekend at which there were talks, workshops plus food
and drink. The site was fortunately next door to a company premises run by
one of our members hence the ability to do all of this in civilised
conditions.

The A station was operated by Malcolm G3PDH, Roger G3LDI, Peter M0RYB, Chris
G0TZZ and Kim G4WUG. It was housed in a tent and the equipment comprised a
Strumech trailer mast with Cushcraft A4S beam with 40m extensions plus
nested dipoles for 160 and 80m. Rig was an IC756 PRO3 + Microham2 interface
and notebook running N1MM. All powered from a Honda 2.6i generator.

Total QSO's before final editing etc were 1090 aided by much better
conditions on 28 although we seem to be too close to Eu to fully benefit
from those E's.  Top band and 80 suffered from heavy static so results there
were a bit lower than hoped.  No specific problems were experienced with any
of the equipment after clearing a slight RFI problem before starting.

 

The B Station in the QRP section was operated by Chris G0DWV, Paul G3SEM,
Ian 2E0IMW, Steve G0KYA, and Jim G3YLA again housed in a tent and using a
756 Mk1 plus Microham2 interface and Notebook running N1MM. The antenna was
a 264ft doublet with 450 ohm feed feeding through a cranky old Capco ATU
with a broken turns counter!  Power was supplied from a very large generator
which had to be heavily loaded with halogen lamps.  They made 165 Q's during
their 12 hour participation. Again no problems other than the ATU which made
band changing somewhat tedious.

 

The weekend overall was a great success and with having all of the other
activities going on at the same time there were lots of visitors and club
members at the site making it seem all worthwhile as compared to a few old
CW addicts sitting alone in a tent in a sodden field, which it used to be!

 

73

Malcolm G3PDH