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
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AuthorA few notes on recent radio activity by Steve, M0BPQ. Archives
December 2020
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