ATV Activity Weekend 12/13 September

[G8GKQ]

Hi All

This coming weekend 12/13 September is the first of our quarterly ATV Activity Weekends. The times are from 1300 on Saturday to 1900 on Sunday, but feel free to operate outside those times as well. The aim is to encourage all on-air ATV activity, whether portable, DX or simply using your local repeater. Just get on the air and tell me about it!

Please use https://www.dxspot.tv/ to log your contacts, or just send me a list in an e-mail. I will compose a report for the next CQ-TV just so that we can publicise what's going on.

Remember that it is also a Contest weekend in the Netherlands, so don't forget to take a look in that direction as well.

Please reply to this post if you plan to be active.

Have fun

Dave
G8GKQ

[M0DTS]

Here are my plans for the ATV Activity 12/13th Sept:

On the Saturday i will be at IO94MJ North Yorkshire Moors sometime after lunch.
On the Sunday i will also be on the North Yorkshire Moors, more likely IO94LI - Active from 10am ish.
Good Take off in most directions at 1200ft Asl

I will be taking gear for all bands from 146MHz -> 24GHz, with low SR DATV possible on all bands except 6cm.
I will have analogue all bands above 146MHz.

If anyone wants to come along and help out or just see what goes on then please let me know.

The Balloon fox hunt in Holland is on Sunday Afternoon with 2330MHz FM ATV down link and FM voice transponder to look for if you have a good path over there.
When the balloon gets high enough eastern stations should be able to receive something from the balloon at 30km up like i have done in the past.
http://www.ballonvossenjacht.nl/

73

Rob
M0DTS

[g8gtz]

Hi

I will be out on Saturday afternoon / evening at JO02KP which is near East Dereham in Norfolk and hope to work the locals plus Rob and potentially Dutch stations who are also having an activity weekend.

I will have RB-TV on 146, 437 and 23cms and DATV on 437 and 23cms as well as FM ATV on 23cms. I will also have 70cms ATV rx using an RTL dongle and the SharpTV application.

Talkback via 144.750 vertical and horizontal beam plus http://www.dxspot.tv and 07881914287

As Rob said "If anyone wants to come along and help out or just see what goes on then please let me know."

Currently not planning to be active on Sunday but maybe out after lunch in IO91 square depending on the M25 traffic and Northern Terrorist activities - otherwise know as Land Rover reliability!

Look forward to working you all

73

Noel - G8GTZ

[G8GKQ]

Hi All

I plan to be at Walbury Hill IO91GI on Saturday afternoon with 437 MHz DATV (and analogue). 2MS only, sorry no RB-TV this time.

Talkback on 144.75 FM

Dave
G8GKQ

[g0mjw]

Hi Dave,

I hope I can receive you but I am afraid I can not readily do 2m talkback except with via my vertical colinear. No 70cm TX yet as its not set up. My 2m yagis are receive only.

Mike

[G8GKQ]

Thanks to all who participated this Saturday afternoon. Phil M0DNY and I had an enjoyable outing to Walbury Hill. We made DATV contacts with G8ADM, G8LES, G4CPE and G0MJW. Attempted contact with G8GTZ/P in Norfolk, but even the 144 MHz talkback was difficult.

I won't be out tomorrow, but will be watching DXSpot.TV to see what everybody else is up to.

Dave
G8GKQ

[M0DTS]

Unfortunately conditions did not help us yesterday!

Initial setup of the portable station was ok in the cloud at 1200ft Asl but then Thunder and Lightning started so i had to drop the mast for 30min to let it pass over!
I tried to contact Noel on 144.750 but it was just too weak, ssb was even poor at 200km away.

I did manage a number of contacts while out portable:
23cm P2 Analogue to M0IKB over a VERY obstructed path, Gus was beaming south away from me to get a reflection!
23cm P5 Analogue to Terry G1LPS.
6cm P5 Analogue to G1LPS using just a small horn and 6W.
70cm P5 Digital to G1LPS using 333Ks. 2Ms was not possible to hold good lock as we have seen on previous tests due to Fylingdales interference but 333Ks works well, ideally at 437.5MHz.
I was giving a video tour of the portable setup through GB3KM for a while too.
Finally before packing up i managed 2-way P5 Analogue QSO with Bob G7AVU.

So it was not too bad day out. I decided to abandon Sunday's outing and operate from home due to poor tropo conditions.
Thanks to all for QSO's / attempts.

73
Rob

[G8DKC]

Contact with Steve 2E0XAY and M1NAS via GB3GV on 1249 analogue across Leicester, tried to get into GB3UD from home QTH, with normal and UD's S/R Pids, etc , but no luck, should be good path.

Later on Sunday Steve XAY went out so picked him up mobile around Markfield, and transmitted back with 40w of 1249 digital, turning this down to 5w with good signal, back up to 40w monitored by Steve /M on his way home for a few miles.

73

Peter

[g8gtz]

Hi

Went to Norfolk as planned (IO02) but condx were not good but at least the rain stopped. Tried to work Rob M0DTS on the North York Moors but was hard going on 2mt SSB so no chance of TV. Worked Dave G8GKQ on Walbury on .750 FM but not on 70cms ATV.

However, I did work Mark G4WVU and Andy G8VLL through GB3TN (437 DATV in and 23cms ATV out) and also saw GB3NV on 3.4 DATV.

On Sunday I went up to Dunstable Downs (great site with fantastic take off to the North) where I met Ted 2E0EAZ and worked Arthur G4CPE and Steve M0SKM on 146 MHz RB-TV plus had a one way rx with Don G0WFT in Toddington.

Overall an enjoyable weekend and whilst I didn't work too many people, it's good to get out portable and I think we should organise activity days every 3 months and hopefully the activity levels will gradually increase. We'll check when the Dutch days are but the 2nd weekend in December (we could time the repeater contest to coincide), March and June seem likely so put them in your diary now.

73

Noel - G8GTZ

[G8GKQ]

There were 3 certificates offered for this Activity Weekend:

- Repeater Group with most QSOs

- Best DX Contact on any band

- Best DX Contact on RB-TV (<800 KHz)

I have yet to receive all the reports for the activity, but I know that the following stations were on-air:

M0DTS/P
G1LPS
G4CPE
G8GKQ/P
2E0XAY/P
G8GTZ/P
G8ADM
G8LES
G0MJW
M0IKB
G7AVU
M1NAS
M0SKM
G0WFT

I also had reports of activity through GB3GV and GB3TN.

Please send e-mail reports of your activity to me as soon as possible, so that I can publish the final results and send out the certificates.

I will finalise the results on Monday 28 September.

Dave
G8GKQ
batccontests@gmail.com