International ATV Contest 11/12 June - Update

[g8gtz]

I had a terrible Saturday afternoon at a new site near the Hannington transmitter mast south of Newbury - despite huge amounts of preparation, I listed 11 problems on site and things just did not go well.

I only worked Dave G8GKQ who was 18 Km away on 70cms and 23cms - we were going to try RB-TV on 10GHz but we both lost the will to live! I should have been able to work Shaun GW8VPG on 146 but we couldn't even make it on .750 FM...

The only good thing is that John G7JTT helped out and is catching the ATV bug again after dropping out for 10 years - he used to do very well in ATV contests http://www.jmkl.freeserve.co.uk/contest1.htm

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On Sunday I left home at 6am and drove down to Fairlight near Hastings - the site has excellent take off on most directions except West and was chosen to see if we could work Dutch and French stations. I managed to get set up in the dry but then it just rained for 4 hours solid followed by thick mist.

This used to be called the "SUMMER" FUN contest - note the river running under the Land Rover!

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Everything just seemed to work well, unlike Saturday, but condx matched the weather. It took nearly an hour but eventually I managed to work F9ZG near Cherbourg on 432 MHz 125 Ks RB-TV (at 235 KMs is that the RB-TV record?) and I also saw pictures from F3YX in Paris on 70cms and 23cms 1.5 Ms DATV.

With much patience from Wouter (PA3WEG), I received pictures from him at Delft University (286 Km) 1ms DATV on 437 MHz but he could not see me due to a 10 dB power difference - a couple of people have asked if this is the first direct PA to G DATV reception not via a repeater - anyone know any different?

I used dxspot.tv to line up a 70cms ATV contact with an ON1 station but after 45 mins of trying using the TVsharp program, I only managed to get the first 2 digits on the contest exchange

But the real result was that I worked Charles G4GUO in Worthing - probably his best Dx ever at 76 Km - and well deserved for all the effort he has put in to DATVExpress project!

So great fun, hard work doing 2 contests in a weekend, managed to draw few spot lines on dxpot.tv but looks like we'll have to send the certificates "up north" yet again - and I'm not even allowed to qualify for the RB-TV best Dx prize

73 - Noel

[M0DTS]

I had a reasonable two day outing also.
Shame about the weather and band conditions though after last week's super tropo up here!

Saturday saw most activity but less bands worked,managed 23cm with G8VDP for the first time and a new callsign in the log after 10 years off air!
Also worked G7AVU and G3NWR/P over 100km.

I even managed to work Clive G4FVP over a very obstructed path on 23cm, using the rtlsdr dingle and tv sharp brought the numbers through the noise nicely compared to just weak sync on the sat rx

Sunday was a quiet start and a swift finish trying to get contacts done by 1pm...then being reminded contest was running until 7pm... oops!! Lost a qso to that!
I managed qso's on all bands 146MHz to 24GHz which is a first so I was quite happy!

Now to sort the log entry..

73 all and thanks for qso's.

Rob
M0DTS

[pa3weg]

Hi Noel,

Thanks for the write up, it is always nice to see the other station.
Working conditions on my end were:
15dBi antenna gain, circular
Antenna 100m ASL
About 250W of power
shoulders at <-40dBc
1MS, 1/2 FEC
QRG: 437 MHz

Using the DTX-1, output into driver amplifier (minicircuits PSA-545+), followed by a 100W class A amplifier backed off to ~10W to drive a BEKO HLV-550 power amplifier to 250W.

I'll add some piccies as well later

DTX-1, driver and PA (in rack)

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Antennas at 100m ASL, this picture was taken on the Delfi-C3 launch day

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PSA-545+ used as driver. Its also good as Pre-amp

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[G8GKQ]

Hi All

Thanks for making the effort to get on the air during the contest. PLEASE, please send in an entry to me so that we can show how much activity there was.

While I would prefer entries in using the spreadsheets linked from the first page of this topic, I am happy to accept other formats and transcribe them. What is important is that we publicise what we are doing.

Lastly, please send me any photos that you have of your equipment/aerials, and off-air pictures. I would like to get good coverage in CQ-TV and perhaps even other magazines. Here's one as a taster - just to show that the weather wasn't all bad!

Thanks

Dave
G8GKQ

[G8GKQ]

Hi All

The closing date for entries is this coming Monday, 27 June. Please e-mail your entries to me at contests@batc.org.uk this weekend.

If I have received your entry, you will have an acknowledgement from me.

Thanks

Dave
G8GKQ

[PA3CRX]

The results can be found at https://vhf-uhf.veron.nl/wp-content/upl ... s-2016.pdf
Congratulations to all who joined!

10 and 11 september it is again ATV activity weekend in the Netherlands. Maybe again contact between UK and the continent?