I shot off after VHF FD for two weeks on holiday in France. The first week was split between the North (near Calais) and a city break in Toulouse. The second week we had a gite near Pau and a hire car so I threw in my FT-60E, Opentracker+, puck GPS and a ¼ wave mini mag mount to see if things worked out there.

There were several issues learnt: the standard HT battery only lasts about 2 days , but I had two, so I covered most of our trips out and about (I didn’t take a charger to reduce the amount I was carrying). The 1300MAH lithium cells that I used to power the tracker and GPS also had a surprising short life but a recharge half way through covered that off. A final issue was setting up the transceiver/tracker. If I set the squelch to an appropriate level at the gite , out in the sticks, it was useless in town where the noise levels were higher. This meant the tracker thought the channel was busy and didn’t tx for long periods of time. Once I had worked this out and adjusted the squelch in town things were much better. Perhaps I also need to play with the software DCD on the tracker as well to avoid this in the future.

I checked aprs.fi on my mobile a couple of times and was surprised about the level of coverage I received. If you look for M0BPQ-12 on the db0anf site you will see some great tracks.

I see that this is all down to the efforts of the F5ZVO digi at La Pierre St-Martin, which is a ski resort in the mountains. There is no wonder it does such a good job when it is at 1700M ASL.

Looking at the data afterwards, I was also amazed to see that I was logged by EC1H-12 at a remarkable 464Km, also when I was up in the mountains. Not bad for a data mode, 5W and a ¼ wave whip on 2m..... Location, location, location!

The Clifton 2008 VHF FD effort from the Kent county showground took place with even fewer operators than usual. With our stalwart 70cm operator G4FAA out of action due to family illness we decided to run 6, 4 and 2m, with 70cm as an make weight for an hour or two overnight after 6 finished and before 4m started. Overall we planned to hit the mix and match section.

The weather forecast was ominous, with low pressure coming from the west. We got on site at around 10am Saturday and had tents up quite quickly so we had somewhere to shelter should the heavens open. In actual fact it was bright if breezy for all of Saturday. The antennas went together quickly and two 10m masts erected by 1300UTC. One mast had a dual band 6/4m yagi and a 21 el Tonna. The second had a 3WL 2m yagi. We had a minor wobble with the 2m mast as it went up but some quick work on the ropes ensured everything stayed up. By Clifton standards it was a minor tremble and will not go down in the club annals alongside the unrestricted downward telescope (aka collapse) of a lattice mast or causing a motorcyclist to end up in the hedge bottom as Jacob’s ladder ascended to heaven in the field next to him.

Remarkably the RF side went together well the 6/4/70 station was based around an FT-847 and amplifier so that was simple and reliable all weekend. The 2m station was an IC-756Pro, DEM transverter and amplifier where the only problem was the sequencer packing up but some quick work with the soldering iron sorted that out in about 20 minutes. We had a wifi network running N1MM on site and the cluster supplied by 3G was reliable all weekend. The gas powered generator required no attention at all other than “start” and “stop”.

The low pressure and predicted heavy weather led us to expect little tropo enhancement once we got underway and we weren’t wrong. We made 20 fewer QSOs on 2m than our adjudicated score last year and 130 less than 2005. The station seemed to work, with 700Km contacts to the bigger continental stations but we simply didn’t get a run of the average “near continental” home stations that makes a 2m contest weekend. We also closed down on 2m overnight as will power decreases as the average age of the club increases and conditions didn’t warrant the effort. We had a tune around on 70cm and worked the locals over an hour or so for a token entry so can’t really comment on that band.

6m provided some entertainment. With a few minutes to go before the contest started, M0BPQ found the CY0X DXpedition running stations on cw and at 1400UTC exactly what turned out to be our best DX was in the log at 4490 Km. From there on we had a reasonable time with spotty SpE throughout the contest from all over Europe. G7TWC put in a shift on SSB to make many of the contacts. The Sunday 4m session with G3JKY at the helm had a fast start, but the contacts soon dried up. We were unable to contact IK0SMG on SpE early in the contest (he appeared for about 3 minutes) but getting a very weak CT1HZE in the last few minutes helped enormously. We didn’t help ourselves mind, as a Caribbean opening on 6m caused a quick QSY and bagged PJ6, TO5E and three KP4’s outside of the contest and an hour’s entertainment in the middle.

The wind and rain really ratcheted up at around noon Sunday, making for a wet tear down. I didn’t feel that the weather was as bad as the forecast predicted, but we were off site two hours after the contest ended so it certainly speeded us up!

Operators: G0DCG, G3JKY, M0BPQ, G7TWC, G4RFC, with help from G0NGP and G7BKH


Equipment: FT847 on 70cm (35W and 21 el, restricted section), 4m (25W and 5 el, low power section), and 6m (100W and 4 el restricted section). IC-756Pro + DEM transverter + amp (100W and 9 el restricted section). Overall mix and match section. Score summary from N1MM:

Band    Call                  Mode   QSOs  Pts       ODX               KM
50        M0BPQ/p        Both     72        62429  CY0X            4490
70        M0BPQ/p        CW      2          834     
70        M0BPQ/p        USB     32        7448    CT1HZE         1728
144      G3GHN/p        USB     147      34270  F1USF/p          798
420      M0BPQ/p        USB     12        1396    DK0PU           429

Again a big gap between posts.

The radio scouting team dismantled the GB2GP shack last weekend and I have ended up with yet more kit to hide in the loft. Everything went smoothly, but there will be no radio activity from Gilwell until the LID is back running in March 2009. 

The group has been offered a time step wx sat receiver and antenna though and we are investigating ways to put this up as a permanent demonstration station, perhaps coupled with a weather station. There are obvious possibilities for publishing data on the web or tying it in with a formal APRS Igate. I find the RSGB packet radio licensing forms baffling, so I may look for some help on how to move that forwards. 

It is region1 VHF FD this weekend and the weather forecast is terrible! I am providing the computer network running n1MM and 3G cluster along with the 6/4m and 2m station for the Clifton ARS.  

The 6/4m station will be my FT-847 running 100W on 6m and 25W on 4m to a dual band yagi at 10m agl (4 el on 6m – restricted section, 5 el on 4m low power section). 

The 2m station will be my IC-756Pro, DEM transverter, linear amp, sequencer, preamp and 9 el DK7ZB at 10m AGL for the restricted section. 

I might chuck in the Gilwell TS-200 to run on 70cm if we have enough operators!

That doesn’t look like much gear, but add in tents, poles, ropes, ac distribution, computers, networking, heliax, rotators and all the interconnecting cables it will fill the hire van. Never mind all the effort that goes into making it all fit together in the first place.  This will probably be the last time I get so involved as it is becoming expensive and an awful lot of work! Anyone need a seasoned operator for VHF FD next year?