[UK-CONTEST] May UHF Contest - 23cm Report

[Ray James]

The biggest mistake I made other than having a lie in on Sunday morning was bothering with the 70cm Trophy Contest on Saturday. A complete waste of time which would have been better spent fully on 23cm. White noise combined with the inability to experiment with schedules made via ON4KST because of the continued RSGB Contest Committee ban on its use on this band made for a miserable experience. No 70cm RF emanated from my shack on Sunday as once bitten, twice shy.

At least on 23cm and higher the ability to make schedules (with no guarantee of success) remains and despite pretty poor conditions there was far more activity to be found and therefore loads more fun which is what this hobby should be about.

I ended up with 30 contacts which is the first time that milestone has been reached on 23cm. ODX was PA6NL in JO21BX at 709Km.
At least 11 stations were active from Scotland at some point over the weekend which is a record in my book.
Very pleased to work a couple of initials with Tim M0AFJ and Charlie G3WDG making it into the log. Tim mentioned he only had 8w at his antenna and the 491Km contact was a new ODX for the band. I'm sure he'll surpass that very soon with his slick operating under aircraft reflection conditions.

I did try calling or listening on 144.175 on occasion but found it very quiet but it did net two scheduled contacts, both next door in IO74.

The map of my contacts can be viewed at http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.rsgbcc.org/vhf/kml_files/2010/iS08wWRLiRsC0aLIV4Ka0afYnUYG0dv

73 Ray GM4CXM