[UK-CONTEST] March 144 / 432

[John Lemay]

Colchester Contest Group made a late decision not to take part in this one.
The decision wasn't taken lightly, because it's one of the contests which
count towards the annual Championship. However, with a bare minimum of
operators, combined with very poor weather forecast for Sunday, we took the
easy option. In the event, the bad weather was a bit late, but during the
afternoon the rain got heavier and turned to sleet and the temperature went
from 7 down to one degree C in about an hour.

I decided to have a bash from home, using modest equipment that came to
hand: FT-847 with 100w amps for 2m and 70cms, masthead pre-amps for both
bands. 12 ele on 2m and 2 x 21 ele on 70cms.

I operated for several periods of 2 to 3 hours, working what was around and
closing down for a while when the rate (such as it was) declined. There was
no long DX on either band; the weather put paid to any hopes of that.

As stated elsewhere, it seems that for most of the time, the near Europeans
were beaming east most of the time. It was difficult to break their
pile-ups. Given the poor level of G activity, it's not surprising they don't
beam west much. This difficulty is compounded by the rules that do not allow
the use of KST or similar chat for G stations. The rest of Europe was using
it intelligently to promote long distance qso attempts, and all we can do is
sit and watch.

I made maximum use of 2m to ask qso partners to try 70cms. This was
extremely useful and I can't recall any attempt which did not succeed.

Noise levels at my semi rural qth are usually quite low. However, I have new
neighbours to my immediate south-west, and some new noises on 2m too. I
suppose it's a sign of the times. On a more positive note, the local TV
transmitter at Sudbury has now gone digital, and all kinds of noises on
70cms have disappeared. I can hear stuff on 70cms now that I would not have
dreamed of a year ago.

Regards

John G4ZTR

 

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