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Re: September Low band contest

Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 3:23 pm
by Tony G4CBW
Planning to be out on the Sunday /p at IO93AD with 70cm and 146 MHz May also make Saturday afternoon as well. Talkback144750 and Zello.

73 Tony G4CBW

Re: September Low band contest

Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 7:17 am
by G7JTT
Hope to be active from 10am onwards 70cm only from Lane end IO90JA.

All best John G7JTT

Re: September Low band contest

Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 11:06 pm
by G4KLB
Thanks to everyone who made contact with me.

Not easy to fit 4 bands on one mast but it was done :D

4 bands.jpg
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Re: September Low band contest

Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:28 am
by g8gtz
Well, that was good fun and the weather was great in the South but not in the North - sorry Rob :-(

It was great to work 2 new callsigns on Saturday from Walbury Hill IO91GI - G4XAT/P and G4FKK and also G4KLKB and G0MJW all on 71MHz.

I also managed to get some great recordings of Mike G0MJW running 66ks on 71MHz - these will be sent to Ofcom as proof of the experimentation UK radio amateurs are doing and how we are making use 71MHz.

I also worked Colin on 51Mhz at 93Kms plus G8GKQ on 146Mhz - I suffered a pre-amp failure on 70cms so no contacts.

On Sunday I went to IO91FN and worked Dave G4FRE on 71MHz plus 7 stations on 437 MHz including G4CBW/P in IO93 and M0DTS/P at 317Kms.

It was great to have so much activity in the South but why was there no real activity elsewhere? I'll be starting a seperate forum thread to try and understand what BATC can do to encourage people to get on the air - it really is a case of use it or loose it - see CQ-TV 265 if you don't believe me me.

Don't forget there's activity weekends every month, the repeater contest in December and a 23cms and up contest,including 5665MHz in March.

73's
Noel - G8GTZ

Pictures to follow....

Re: September Low band contest

Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:23 am
by M0DTS
Well i don't have much in the way of pictures to show but quite enjoyed yesterday's trip out portable.
Weather was rubbish, which i expect now, but 7-8c in the afternoon with rain was not nice for this time of year!

Quite a few issues this time, 1st was an issue on 4m where the coax centre pin had pulled back and not connecting to the 4m antenna!
My excuse is this is the first time /p with 4m....!
Sorry Noel, i'm sure we would have worked if i had figured that out earlier.

Second issue was 2m, my amp had decided to die due to a burned out ceramic capacitor and giving only 1W output, i know, i should have replaced them with something more suitable by now...!
3rd issue was lack of filtering on 70cm, not that it has helped in the past but fylingdales pulses were hammering the receivers so unable to decode anything but the strongest of signals.

Glad Tony CBW came on otherwise it would have been a bit quiet.
Was quite a gathering on site as 3 vans there with the other guys playing radio too on HF (fortunately)

73 and thanks to all for the contacts.

Rob
M0DTS

Re: September Low band contest

Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 11:43 am
by g0mjw
g8gtz wrote:
Mon Sep 16, 2019 8:28 am
I also managed to get some great recordings of Mike G0MJW running 66ks on 71MHz - these will be sent to Ofcom as proof of the experimentation UK radio amateurs are doing and how we are making use 71MHz.

It was great to have so much activity in the South but why was there no real activity elsewhere? I'll be starting a seperate forum thread to try and understand what BATC can do to encourage people to get on the air - it really is a case of use it or loose it - see CQ-TV 265 if you don't believe me me.

Don't forget there's activity weekends every month, the repeater contest in December and a 23cms and up contest,including 5665MHz in March.

73's
Noel - G8GTZ

Pictures to follow....
Oh no. We managed to get 33k to work reliably last night. 66k is much better though. It demonstrates we are making use of bands and that we don't really need more spectrum than we already have, which is likely to go down well.

I have also noted a lack of activity from elsewhere. When I lived on Winter Hill in the 1980s there was quite a bit of analogue activity on 70cm and 23cm that persisted until a few years ago when we went digital. Activity dropped of a cliff. It's not that the locals don't like digital, I think it's more that there is a significant difference in peoples' disposable incomes between North and South, especially for retirees. Analogue was cheap. There has been a marked difference in the weather of late as well, that might explain lack of portable activity when there are easier, less challenging modes to try indoors. However, I see quite a few from all around the country (even Yorkshire) now appearing on QO100, so maybe once everyone gets board of working 1/3 of the world with ease and sharing images of exotic sun-drenched beaches they will once again chose to go out in the rain to work a couple of people on VHF and UHF.

Mike

Re: September Low band contest

Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 2:17 pm
by radiogareth
The great weather helped, didn't even need to guy my vehicle mounted mast. Nice to work Noel on 4M too for my 'best dx' so far.
So many refinements to my setup needed I hope to be back better organised (I nearly typed 'well organised' then!!) and on more bands.
Its a start :-)

73

Gareth
Small camper09.jpg
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Re: September Low band contest

Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2019 2:31 pm
by G4FRE
Operated from Dorstone IO82LB for the weekend

Had generator issues on saturday so worked nothing and had to make the 100 mile round trip to pick up reserve generator on saturday evening

After the 4m AFS contest, I worked Noel on 4m (17MER) over the 117km path. I then put up the 144 and 437Mhz antenna, crowded together on the same mast to save the trouble of putting up the second mast. I then worked Noel on 437Mhz (14MER) and saw his signals on 146Mhz(21 mer) but he had broken his minituoner and couldnt receive me. The 437 qso was my first datv one on that band, I got so excited I forgot to change the coax lead and ended up working Noel using 5W to the 2 metre antenna! The 2MS video was impressive

Also on 437Mhz (with the 437MHz antenna) I saw pictures from G4CBW at MER=12 (when working noel) and more surprisingly M0DTS/P (also when working Noel) with an MER of 14dB. Unfortunately my 100W was unsufficient to break into the 2m FM talkback pileup and arrange to try for a 2 way qso!

Failed by a whisker in trying to work G8LES on 437Mhz/250k

Dave
G4FRE/p