[UK-CONTEST] NFD 2010 - GU4YOX/P

[GU4YOX]

Hello everyone,

 

Tomorrow sees me celebrating my 50th birthday. I therefore thought that I
would have a bash at NFD to add some spice to my birthday week.
Additionally, I recalled my first ever NFD 40 years ago with G3ERD/P when I
was 10. Luckily enough, a photograph exists of that first event which was
sent to me by Richard G3VGW. I’ll be honest, I was just an onlooker at 10
years old but the photo clearly shows me looking on at some antenna building
work with the Derby radio lads. Time has moved on though I thought I would
air GU4YOX/P for the first time I think. After a long week at work I wasn’t
entirely fired up on all 12 cylinders also being out on the Thursday evening
at a party. I was excited though as I managed to secure a new operating
position as far north on the island as you could possibly get. I was about
100m from the sea edge. I couldn’t get closer because of a public coastal
walkway but, a great position, being able to see EU clearly at 120 degrees
and sea all the way around E-N-W to about 210 degrees.

 

I thought this year, I would have a single band bash on 20M in the open
section. Being on my own made things a bit busy, getting  a 2kW genny set
up, cables etc and the antennas built, which was a 20M ground plane and an
inverted Vee at about 8M high in the centre running N-S. I installed a
switch box and 90M of cabling back to the van which was to become my home
for the 24 hours. 

 

The site was a great except for one item. The site is an old landfill site
and next to it is a “Live” landfill site! All the times I had visited it to
check cable run lengths etc the wind had been northerly, the site being to
the west. Guess what, Saturday started with Westerly wind. It was disgusting
and I had to keep the doors closed all the time. When my family popped up to
see me, they left immediately!

 

I had 4 visitors, some lost French visitors who wandered up to the van on
the Sunday, Mike GU4EON for a welcome break and during the night a rat came
to the door! All good fun.

 

I was in the seat for about 22 hours and was seriously losing the plot in
the last couple of hours and couldn’t understand cw that well. I perhaps
should have had a day to rest beforehand to build up sleep etc.

 

On reflection though, I did enjoy myself though and it was great to work all
the familiar calls. I didn’t work that many UK stations unfortunately, I
guess that stretch of water makes England difficult to contact on 20M. Some
lovely DX worked though and ZL’s and JA’s were worked one after another at
one point. Loads of German portables


 

It was also the first time I had used my trusty K2 set. Wow! What have I
been missing
it was a dream on cw and the filtering is just beautiful. The
site was very quiet and all I could here was signals – heaven.

 

People don’t seem to be posting scores so far? Is this usual? I worked some
big scores for the open all band guys so guess it must be close.

 

My final score wasn’t great and I don’t think I’ve done that well, but it
certainly made my 50th birthday week and 40 years in ham radio. It was
another 4 years in July 1974 before my parents bought me my £3? RSGB
membership. 

 

Thanks for the QSO’s everyone and apologies towards the end when I took time
to get the messages through.

 

73

 

Bob

GU4YOX/P