[UK-CONTEST] January 70cm UKAC

[Ray James]

Conditions appeared quite reasonable in the first hour to the south but died away thereafter. My guess is that this was the result of aircraft traffic which enables some very good distant contacts to take place.
With air traffic reducing as the evening progresses then such possibilities disappear as well.

This subject was covered within my talk at the RSGB Convention in October and though it has become commonplace on 23cm because of greater awareness, it appears many 70cm contesters could do with some hints and tips in order to capitalise on this mode of operation. This can be very useful now that the UKAC's are far more competitive and one extra multiplier can have a substantial difference to the end result.

For many, the strategy (and temptation) is to "fill yer boots" from the off and take what comes regarding multipliers without any planning yet the first hour when more aircraft are up in the air is the very time to be mindful of UK DX opportunities.
Distances of up to around 800Km are possible.

I use http://sm7lcb.shacknet.nu/maps/qso_map/sm7lcb_pathmap.htm to establish the important "mid-point" where an aircraft needs to be in order to get a reflection. You want flights to be "in-line" with the area or station you want to work, not flying across.

For establishing what suitable aircraft are available to reflect off then I use http://www.planefinder.net/ though other sites available include http://www.flightradar24.com/ and http://www.radarvirtuel.com/

Aircraft of greatest use are those at high level, not ones ascending or descending. Some sites include filters that enable you to reduce screen clutter by filtering out low level jets.

An occasional cursory glance at the location of aircraft will provide information on ideal headings to beam towards in order to CQ in the hope someone is listening or alternatively tune around to listen for DX calling though I appreciate this is much harder when your local and near local UKAC activity is wall to wall :-) 

In the first hour or so stations in JO01, JO02, IO91 and IO92 netted IO75 for a multiplier and in the majority of occasions they were aircraft assisted contacts. Some very impressive serial numbers were receievd so the band was really buzzing elsewhere. 
As far as I was aware, 8 GM's were active though I think both GM8IEM (IO78) and GM3GG (IO97) were unable to make any or few contacts.
I only managed one contact in the last 40 minutes despite much CQ'ing and tuning about.  

My QSO map can be found at http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.rsgbcc.org/vhf/kml_files/2011/hPmRLUr7j84FPy7iJmad2V1kaXH9J3f

73 Ray GM4CXM IO75TW
120w 2x23 MGF-1402 LNA