M0BPQ Amateur radio
  • M0BPQ Home
  • Radio Blog
  • APRS
  • Equipment
  • Clubs
  • QSL
  • Photos
  • Contacts
  • G5YC
  • What's new?
  • For Sale

NFD at G3GHN

6/20/2010

0 Comments

 
The Clifton ARS met up to do NFD from Detling in Kent over the first weekend in June. As usual, things were rather chaotic. Only G3JKY and I are capable contest of contest CW, and JKY doesn’t do computers which means there is much hassle around logging.

That said, the club decided to enter the open section this year. Not because we could make the 1500 Qs needed to win, but because over the years the club has won every single band in the contest except 10m and 160m so we decided to try and win one of those bands to add to the record. To do this, JKY provided a dipole for 10m, along with a vertical whilst G4RFC produced a dipole for top band. The vertical also ran on 15 and 20m, whilst the top band dipole would run on 40 and 80 if the other bands were dead. The photo shows Jakey in action with his Ten Tec radio

Picture
  As it turns out we didn’t need to worry too much as 10m was open for most of the weekend daylight hours. We made quite a few Qs, but I suspect that this will not be enough to slay the ghost as other open section entrants will have been using beams on 10m. Top band was plagued by high static – a huge thunderstorm passed within 25 miles, giving a great light show over the Thames, but JKY didn’t have to slow the rate down at all and we made 130 Qs. This is 40 less than last year, but I suspect that the wx meant that others were spending less time on the band.

The raw scores are:
      Band    QSOs    Pts
         1.8     135     950
           7       8      32
          14     101     317
          21      23      65
          28     127     722
       Total     394    2086

So let's see how we do. Hopefully it won't be rock bottom of the heap!
0 Comments

TS-480SAT in remote contesting use

5/24/2010

0 Comments

 
The RSGB runs a series of short weekday evening contests. The VHF+ ones are on Tuesdays, multi mode, but the bands change, whilst the HF ones flip day and contest mode, but are always on 80m. Last week’s HF contest was 80m cw, and presented a good opportunity to test the ts-480 in remote mode, As usual, I didn't have much time to play and was only available for the last 10 minutes of the contest making about 15 QSOs. Nonetheless I learnt a few valuable lessons.

As suspected, a real front panel makes all the difference to S&P operation so the move to the ts-480 was the right one. I  used the naked bare bones 480 in contest conditions with the inbuilt dsp. Whilst the AF dsp works just fine, much better than my FT-847’s , there is clearly no substitute for real IF filtering so I have just ordered a 500Hz filter ready for the WPX contest this weekend.  
0 Comments

Region 1 NFD 2009

6/11/2009

0 Comments

 

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

0 Comments

RSGB AFS SSB

1/18/2009

0 Comments

 

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!

0 Comments

NFD with the Clifton ARS

6/9/2008

0 Comments

 

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

0 Comments

First Post!

4/17/2008

0 Comments

 

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!

0 Comments

    Author

    A few notes on recent radio activity by Steve, M0BPQ.

    Archives

    December 2020
    November 2012
    October 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2011
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009
    January 2009
    December 2008
    August 2008
    July 2008
    June 2008
    April 2008

    Categories

    All
    All
    Aprs
    Contests
    Hf Contests
    Projects
    Scout Radio
    Txbpf
    Vhf

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.