[UK-CONTEST] NFD G4OGB/P

[Derek Thom]

The Cheltenham club (G5BK) may not be in the top league but neither are we 
in the "casual BBQ" category.  We plan ahead, trying to improve on previous 
years' results, and tackle the contest with enthusiasm and a good degree of 
seriousness.  However we are a true club entry so we "allow" any reasonable 
contest operator to take part and indeed we try to encourage new blood to 
provide for the future.  If the highly competitive groups go elsewhere then 
that's good news for us - we will then stand a better chance of winning!!

For the record we made 964 valid QSOs and are claiming nearly 3,500 points. 
Our QSO total was up by 100 this year but the claimed score only up 
marginally because of fewer QSOs on 160m and 10m (where there is a x2 bonus) 
in spite of much trying.  160m was marred by very heavy static necessitating 
many repeats and on 10m the Sp-E openings were poor, of short duration and 
infrequent.  Activity from the UK did appear to be down this year.

The weather was dry for the setting up, it rained very heavily late Saturday 
afternoon and into the evening, rained on and off Sunday morning and then we 
were treated to another heavy downpour at packing-up time!

No real problems although we had to abandon my IC756proII before the start 
because of severe BC intermod problems on 160m (anyone else had this problem 
with this rig, or is mine faulty in some way?) and so had to use the spare 
TS850 which had been brought along.

We had a 265ft inverted vee doublet at 11m in the centre and a sloping 
dipole for 10m.  We used an SG-230 auto-tuner and on a majority decision 
used N1MM (with which I need more practice, being much more familiar with 
SD).

Ops were G3LVP, G3MZV, G3NKS, G4ENA and G0ECJ.

It was good fun, we enjoyed the weekend in spite of the weather and plan to 
be back next year.

Derek G3NKS


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roger Western" <g3sxw at btinternet.com>
To: "Contest Reflector UK" <uk-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] NFD G4OGB/P


> So, a really well-planned effort then, Peter! HI!
>
> Maybe it's the really serious groups who plan meticulously in order to
> maximise their score that 'threw their toys out of the pram', as you put 
> it.
> NFD won't die, but it may well deplete to just the casual BBQ groups. They
> are fine in my book, but it's the highly competitive groups who help 
> develop
> technology. I can see them migrating to the DARC version.
> 73 de Roger/G3SXW.
>
>