JOTA with the Ditton Park Sea Scouts at the old Appleton Laboratories site



THEN - we were on the site of the old shed in the foreground



NOW

A great weekend and a more in depth report coming your way soon

Back from the UKAC this weekend has been about two things.

Putting up the top band antenna and chasing some DX. Conditions have been marginal but A5A Bhutan was bagged on Friday with low power and some cunning and a quick LOTQ QSL from Gibraltar saw the LOTW total go to 150. I must get the cards certified to push that up a bit!




Then to top it I had a QSL with Grecia YV1YLY who used to be YY1YLY (great call) , a serious contester and always has pile ups so I have never been able to get through. Showing us here how to tune a beam.

Field Day was a success even if the weather was a bit iffy.

We worked 600 stations on HF with the 4 element StepIr setup. Not world beating but good contacts into China and all around the world.

I also tried out the DK7ZB designed portable beam on backpackers with the K3s and transverter running from a car battery with the battery booster. That antenna works very well. So well, in fact, I took it out on the UKAC. But that’s another story






The “portable “ hilltoppers setup.




Considering if the wind is going to do something nasty to the StepIr. It didn’t , just blew some of the tent away.



At night it was down to the Hexbeam and the K3 to give me and Uri new entities to Iraq.

Here is the proper use for a landrover

Islands On The Air

What a GREAT contest. Fantastic fun.


I have ever done it before but, for poor propagation conditions, the bands were absolutely packed.

We ran Andy's setup with the 4 ele StepIr and Expert Amp and could have gone on for the full 24 hours if we had enough energy with QSO rates of 100+ per hour.

Best contact for me…Alaska.

Next year the plan is to do IOTA for the Club's 80th anniversary from Burnham Beeches with a special call sign. And we will be recruiting operators - you DR boys look out !!!

Here are some photos from the 6M Trophy at the weekend.

We ran the G0KSZC LFA and it worked very well. In fact we have decided for next year to build a 7 element version at 10m long.

Here it is with the 13 Ele 2m LFA



Here is the 2m setup in the truck with the new transporter



It was awards day as well. Dave won the club contest as well as a very well deserved award for all of his efforts in the club over the last year (that should be years as you all know)





Here is the team

Look what has arrived

A mystery box from Icom for the club raffle. How nice of them

well conditions for the 2M Trophy were not great radio wise or weather wise on the Saturday. Sunday, at least the weather perked up.



]
The 2M beams and the Hex for HF





Great food and thanks to Uri for the vintage wine challenge



We worked Japan on the Elecraft




A first time for the hex beam on the new mast and it worked fine.

See you all at the next one.

From the Show and tell on Monday

GB4MTE

JOTA was a success from the radio point of view , if, unfortunately, there were less Scouts than there were pizzas!

Our very full time team of G0SKA, 2EØSUR, G4EBY and me plus a load of other helpers whose call signs I can't recall at the moment got ourselves to the site for 8am on the saturday and built 2 masts and 3 stations. An HF 6-20 with the hex beam, a 40 & 80m on the club mast and a 2M vertical and yagi on top of that.

It is far to say that the day went well radio wise, maybe not so well for poor Charlie who I found out late in the day was being blatted out by the hex beam. To counter that we are going to look at a band pass filter setup. Hopefully Dave will be able to find some that we might be able to make….more electrical witchcraft.

So what did we work…..check out the GB4MTE QRZ page for more pictures. and we sent love and kisses to ML&S for providing us with log books which will be available for further club contests.


YB0IBM  Indonesia
LU5AB Argentina
WC2K USA
VK5SFA Australia
SV2ASP/A Mount Athos
CO8LY Cuba
NP2X Virgin Islands
F4HJO France
SU8JOTA Egypt
3B9FR Rodriguez Island
RA6AAW Russia
LY1JOTA Lithuania
P40JW Aruba
LA3NUA Norway
KK4SMJ Canada
K5XI United States
CR2EMA The Azores
GØBBB Bracknell
+ a lot more of Europe.

i took over Chris’s perch last night up at Stokenchurch to try to get some more points for the Club. And you know it worked.

Apart from forgetting the headset and having to come home again set up in the rain was ok. Ever had that feeling that you are ready to go, have the mast up and wonder why the coax is still on the ground……down in comes again!

If anyone is interested in sitting in on a VHF contest to see what it is all about then give me a shout. I have yet to work out how I can get a 2 man station into the car but I am sure it can be done.

Conditions were very flat but there is no doubt that the elevation of the site makes a big difference for VHF. Funny I had no problems with a 59 to GI4SNA but could not raise any european DX. Apart from one in Luxembourg.

I look forward to trying this again and it might spurr me on to getting the 70cms beam together.

After Ian’s talk I have sorted out a FREE logging programme for the Mac called SkookumLogger. It works very efficiently and saves me transcribing the logs into the RSGB website. Hopefully!!! we have yet to see if it gets accepted by the powers that be.

Care of 2EØSUR who you can tell likes taking photos after having a beer !

The weekend saw a combined 6m 24 hour contest and drinking competition sponsored by Uri and his whiskey collection.

The contest was great , sporadic “E” conditions which saw us getting to Iceland and further. The mast trailer worked a treat but we need to work on the compressor to get it to go up more slowly!



It also gave me the chance to try the new mast setup and the 6m G0KSC Yagi before the UKAC on Tuesday.

After the seals were done on the club mast I brought it home to scratch mu head about fitting it to the trailer.
It seems that there are a number of different variants of the Scam mast and our looks different to the one that G1NGE had in his photos.

The question was how do you manhandle the massively heavy mast into the exact position that you need and after one failed attempt I resorted to good old ratchet straps and wedges.



Then i turned down the bolts so that they would go into two holes drilled into the frame to pivot the mast. I used a centre drill to centre the hole in the threaded section to avoid damaging the threads and then opened it up to 9.5mm



i thought it important to set the mast vertical before drilling the holes seeing as that is where we want it to end up



The rest just involved grinding the backets to get them to fit




Here it is done. Just needing some painting and the cover plates fitting.

Then on to Uri’s place with the trailer for a day and a half of radio fun.

The weather was a bit grey but us hardy ones that toughed it out had a great evening. The wood burner came into its own for a nice warm place for a meal and a chat,

I set up my go box with the trusty hyendfed wire between the buddipole stand and a Sota pole. The Sota pole is a great bit of kit for fifty quid and I came up with the idea of using the springiness of it to keep tension on the wire. worked a treat and stood up to bit of a wind.

I also put up a 6m beam made with Buddipole bits. needless to say it looked better than it performed as I didn’t get anyone at all.

Not the case, however, for the end fed. Without much hope we gave HS7BHK in Thailand (I know its a Panama call but he insisted he was in Thailand). We got a 59. On the next QSO he gave a 57 to someone, so proper reports and a good result. We also worked Brazil PY2PT. All on a wire you can put in your pocket!

The conditions for the competition were not brilliant but with the beam Dave sorted out we were getting some amazing distances given the conditions and the fact it is 4m!

Yours truly had a quick go and got a couple of squares before Mrs LDZ turned up to rescue downed dove. Turns out Charlie’s caravan is an fact an animal ambulance in disguise.

Last night was really one of the best I have had for a long time so if the opportunity rears its head again. Come on down for the DX Picknic.

THANKS URI FOR A GREAT STAY.