Couldn't commit for a whole weekend, as I was on family duty at a party on  Sunday. I managed to get out of the party set up duties and I strung up an antenna in a field behind my in-laws house and had some fun as G5YC/p for four dry hours with my K2. Although I tested the set up on Saturday with a few  Qs, the laptop refused to play on Sunday, so I was back to a hand key with pen and  paper so the log frequencies were therefore and the serial numbers a bit of a mess. Balancing a key on my knee led to some dodgy sending as well. Conditions seemed Ok - a spot of Es on 10,  but 15 was flat so 20m took the brunt of the work. Club: Imperial College Amateur Radio Society. K2 and V beam 40m per leg, 120 degree apex at 10m agl.

And the Stats:
Band QSOs Pts
7           13    50
14        201  564
21           6    20
28           8    36
Total 228 670

Having missed a chunk of AFS CW (my stag night was the previous evening) I had a good bash at AFS SSB from G0OUR. This was easily my best AFS contest result. The numbers:

Total Qs for me = 335, with 11 dupes so 324 real ones. The hourly
rates were:
Hr 1 = 123
Hr 2 = 88
Hr 3 = 57
Hr 4 = 56

Got into a frequency fight at about 1 3/4 hours in and that hit my 3rd
hour rate terribly. I slugged it out until the end of hour 3 then
G0AAA parked very close to me and killed the slot. I went S&P for 40
minutes which kept the rate OK then found a slot at the bottom of the
band towards the end of the contest and had a great run from there on
in. I set myself a raw target of 300 Qs, so I am well pleased. Station
was Omni VI+ (which I don't like on SSB - the filters are a bit askew
on them all not just this example) ETO 91B amp and a inverted V apex
at 100ft, ends at about 40 ft.

Wedding next week, so no radio for a while.... Actually I will be on APRS during my two day honeymoon in the Cotswolds!

As busy few days radio wise!

NFD took place this weekend and I was part of the Clifton ARS entry (G3GHN/p) from near Maidstone in Kent. 

I provided a full station, IC-756Pro, PC running N1MM, Microham Microkeyer, 9.5m mast and a doublet antenna to go with the club’s auto ATU. It is the first year we have run a doublet fed with open wire, in the past the ATU was at the top of the mast at the centre of the “dipole”. This time we had 50ft of open wire feeding the 260ft long inverted-V.
This seemed to be a better antenna than previous antennas on all bands, but especially on 40 and 80m. I had a panic when AATU did not tune the antenna on the cw part of top band, but did higher up in the SSB section. We played around with the length of the antenna, to no avail. G3JKY came to the rescue and commented that the voltage at the feed point must be too high and that we either needed to dramatically change the length of the open wire (we weren’t sure by how much) or add some capacitance at the bottom of the open wire feeder when using top band. We were reluctant to cut the open wire in case it made things worse so went for the capacitance route by fitting an so-239 across the terminals of the AATU and plugging a random (50ft?) length of co-ax into it. As the co-ax was open circuit it provided enough capacitance to help the ATU do its stuff on top band. Well done Jakey! I couldn’t have come up with that. I now need to learn how to optimise the open wire length so we don’t have that performance again! Any idea, readers?

On the air things went well. HF conditions seemed poor on Saturday and I go us to 9pm with 200Qs in the log including a one hour arte of 58 around 8pm. After all the effort of getting to site and putting the station up I was pretty tired by then. JKY took control overnight with a sterling 215 Qs between 9pm and 7am – 136 on top band for a good points haul. We had an hour off for breakfast and to solve some problems with the co-sited 2m backpackers station and then I took it to the end to produce a final score of:


Band                QSOs              Pts
1.8                   135                  1020
3.5                   114                    388
7                      140                    462
14                    115                    376
21                    39                     141
28                    25                     168
Total               568                  2555


A winning total? Not even close. Better than last year by quite a long way and the conditions on 10 and 15m were better last year as well so overall I have to be pleased. Its still very tough with only two operators though!


Some more data:
QSOs

Band                 Total               G3JKY         M0BPQ        
1.8                   135                   135                        
3.5                   114                    63                    51           
7                      140                    14                  126          
14                    115                                          115          
21                      39                                            39            28                      25                                            25           
Total              568                    212                  356   


G3GHN/p Max Rates:
2008-06-07 1504Z - 2.0 per minute  (1 minute(s)), 120 per hour by M0BPQ

2008-06-07 2015Z - 1.3 per minute  (10 minute(s)), 78 per hour by M0BPQ

2008-06-07 2047Z - 1.0 per minute  (60 minute(s)), 58 per hour by M0BPQ

I participated in last night's RSGB Club championships SSB round. Unfortunately my antenna at home is rubbish on 80m, so I was always last in the queue of callers for each station. I gave up after 31Qs and  an hour.... A few points for the Hadley wood contest group I suppose!