[UK-CONTEST] March 144/432 - G3PYE/P

[Robert Chipperfield]

Hi all,

A few of us headed out with Flossie to our usual site just outside 
Cambridge for a six hour entry in the March 144/432 contest. (The CDARC 
rally on Sunday morning prevented a 24-hour entry.)

Unlike last year, we took a Scam 12 mast along as well, and used this 
for the 70cm beam. Previously, we'd mounted both beams on Flossie's 20m 
mast, which gave us more height on 70cm, but at the expense of not 
having them independently rotatable. We also suffered a little 
breakthrough between the two stations last year, which was absent this time.

On 2m, things were slow but steady for most of the contest - a few 
decent distance contacts in DL (best being DR1H in JN59), but nothing 
particularly to write home about. We did hear an HB9 briefly at one 
point, but it wasn't to be.

Map: 
<http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.rsgbcc.org/vhf/kml_files/2012/pLjMaeIzKFLE2zuUgGXhOq4iJoTmbal>

70cm was significantly slower, with fewer than half as many contacts, 
and not many in Europe either. We were limited to about 80w, and coax 
that isn't as good as it could have been, so I suspect we just weren't 
loud enough to attract the attention of those to the east. As others 
have commented, we tried to move stations from 2m to 70cm whenever 
possible, and when they were so equipped, this generally produced good 
results.

Map: 
<http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.rsgbcc.org/vhf/kml_files/2012/z1I4T5VIXlvcGCunjIyiiMmUMMrsQ2D>

Most of our QSOs resulted from our CQ calls on both bands - we did spend 
significant amounts of time tuning around as well, but there seemed to 
be a great lack of those calling CQ for us to go back to. This probably 
explains the significantly different ratios of UK to EU stations in Bob 
G8HGN's and our logs, and our substantially lower points/QSO (389 vs 
246). Nicely done Bob for finding all those you did!

We had several visitors to the field throughout the afternoon, including 
several who haven't yet operated in a contest, and whilst in this case 
they were happy to observe, it was most encouraging to see them getting 
both enthusiastic and taking the opportunity to note the operating 
techniques that tend to be used. I'm hoping we'll hear them on the air 
themselves soon.

After a quick pack-up at 8pm, those of us who remained decamped to the 
local curry house - and very fine it was too!

73 for now,
Rob, M0VFC