[UK-CONTEST] NFD - G3TBK/P

David Cree daveg3tbk at googlemail.com
Sat Jun 12 13:08:35 PDT 2010


As usual the East Notts CG (also representing Grimsby ARS) entered the 
Open section. Antenna erection went very smoothly on Friday evening, all 
antennas and a new easy-to-erect tent being up by 20:30. The diesel 
generator was also positioned and cabled up. Thanks to the local farmer, 
fuel for the Jenny cost less than £10. Antennas were TH7 at 60 feet, 
dipoles for 160, 80 & 40m all max height, and a 40m dipole at 33 feet. 
The main support was a 60 ft trailer-tower, along with two 50 ft and one 
35 ft guyed sectional aluminium masts. The rig (venerable FT1000D) and 
computer running N1MM were added on Saturday afternoon.

 From the off the conditions on 28 MHz were almost unbeleivable, and I'm 
sure like many others we will have recorded our all-time highest score 
on that band.

However, as Saturday evening progressed the weather became increasingly 
humid and towering thunder clouds appeared. For the second consecutive 
year we suffered from a major thunderstorm at the peak time for 160m & 
80m. The first flash of lightening came just as we QSY'd to 80m.
The storm steadily got closer, and we had to go QRT four times, 
disconnecting all feeders. This cost over an hour of prime LF Band time, 
ensuring we had our lowest 160m & 80m scores for many years.
Also, just as last year, for some time we could only use the low 40m 
dipole due to static on the higher antennas.

As dawn broke the storm finally cleared, leaving a heavy mist. All went 
well throughout Sunday, with 10m again being wide open, and there being 
plenty of activity on 15m too. Naturally QSO numbers on 20m fell, due to 
the time spent on the highest bands.

With about 45 minutes to go the FT1000D developed a fault (probably in 
its PSU) making a very loud humming noise as we keyed. We lost more time 
whilst we changed rigs, to an FT1000MP. The first breakdown on our 
station for many years.

Apart from these enforced outages we had a great time - but it was 
particularly galling to hear later that my son, M0TBK, operating from 
Cambridge as G6UW/P, had no storm and no rain until after he had cleared 
away on Sunday! He was barely 70 miles away!

Band		QSO

160		122
80		198
40		345
20		284
15		163
10		211

Total 1323 Q after dupes.

We had the statiom dismantled very quickly, and I was home 2 hours after 
the contest.

Operators were G3TBK and G4EBK, assisted by G4LPD, G0GDU and M3DVQ.

Maybe next year we will escape storms - up here on the Lincoln Ridge we 
do seem to attract them!

73
Dave G3TBK


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