[UK-CONTEST] NFD 2012 - G3WRR/P

[QUENTIN COLLIER]

Very interesting to read the NFD reports from a number of high achieving stations. Now, to paraphrase a well known advertising strapline, "you've read the best, now try the rest".....so here is an NFD report from a very average Restricted section entry.

It was all change here, with a different field (on the same farm), new tent, new mastage (apart from the geriatric 20ft scaffold poles), new team (self, John G4CZB and John G8IYS), different callsign (G3WRR/P) and team branding (Devon Badgers CG). The farmer (my ex-sister in law) suggested that we might like to try a field that had not been available before as a result of being full of gorse that has now been cleared. This suited us well because it was about 18 inches above the local water table and pretty squidgy, and we hoped the improved ground conductivity would give us better results on 160m that the previous, higher and drier, field - but then I always was an optimist.

The quad bike and trailer usually lent to us by the farmer was not available due to a mechanical failure, so Friday late afternoon we were back to the old "Tote dat barge, lift dat bale" approach involving passing the entire set-up over a fence and carrying it 100-200ft to its final position. Neverthless after a pub meal on Friday night (including a heroic attempt to drink the establishment dry) we got set up by late morning Saturday with the weather still kind to us: the auto ATU worked well this time (now that we have put the balun on the input and choked off the DC supply) once we had got the feeder length optimised. We did experience a few problems with RF gettting into the computer on 160m & 10m (after the contest had started of course) but we only lost about half an hour sorting it out. The miserable weather from Saturday evening onwards made things a little bit depressing but the internal groundsheet on the tent meant we didn't get water
 coming up through the ground....instead, as Dave TBK has reported, condensation pooled on the (splendidly impervious) groundsheeet. But hey, this was NFD after all!  

Conditions seemed a tad disappointing on the HF bands - in particular the great things we had hoped for on 10m failed to materialise. 15m was subdued but 20m was lively. The LF bands seemed much as 2011 but the hoped for improvement on 160m (due to the wetter ground) did not happen - clearly further thought needed. 

Setup:
FTdx5000
260ft inverted V at 40ft, reduced to 68ft on Sunday plus 10m sloper
Auto ATU
2 kW petrol generator

Claimed score after deduction of duplicates:

Band                    QSOs            Points
=============================
 
160                        76                560
80                         121               434
40                         203               653
20                         220               693
15                         110               366
10                           25               192
============================
TOTAL                  755              2898 
 
So overall the result was a bit disappointing  - but despite everything I for one enjoyed it....my compatriots will no doubt form their own views. But for sure I'll be back next year!  

73,



Quin G3WRR