23rd June
Having pre tested the antenna a few days before and found all ok, 260ft doublet, we came on site at 1300 to erect the station. There was myself, Tom, Fred and Phil, with other club members. WX fine and warm and all went well, and we were ready at 1500. The rig was IC756 PR2 with PSU, Winkey keyer, my Samsung computer for logging with SD for G3SAD/P and the club Auto ATU and also my MFJ manual tuner. Also my Generator, which worked perfectly but initially gave noise on 80m band, until we removed its earthing from the same spike as the ATU. However, in spite of our previous
tests, we had problems with the SWR of the antenna, which the Auto ATU would not tune, and with no sigs or noise on 160m band.
We changed to manual ATU which, combined with the Auto ATU, we managed to make it work on all bands but started late and this delayed us on band changes.
We had 1 hour sessions until Phil had to go home at 20.00 which left three of us but we had no problems.
We had positioned the ATU about 10ft from the rig so keeping the ribbon feeder and RF away from the rig and computer which was the case. We ran about 80 watts with no problems.
Top band gave 61 QSOs which were all double points so the antenna work was worth it though the problems with it were very puzzling.
The WX was very warm and we had to use a fan to keep cool but it became damp and cold later.
The sun gave a problem reading the rig screen and the computer which was helped by putting a plastic sheet round the outside of the tent in the sun’s direction.
We operated until 01.00 and then packed up with help and I got home about 02.00.
The final score was 251 QSOs and 66598 points with 61 QSOs on 160.
We used:
A tent loaned by Martin G0NJS.
A table loaned by Rob G2BKZ.
Lights loaned by Phil G4GNK, which were very bright, mains operated.
As mentioned earlier, the club rig, 12m mast, my computer and Winkey.
All worked well. We came 21st out of 25 as we only ran for 9 hours against 24hr for the others.
Tom, G4BYE, helped with the organising.
Ron. G4DDX
