The Long weekend

Thats CQWW over with for another year. A most enjoyable weekend indeed and we look forward to next year. It was a very strange contest, not one for quantity of contacts but if you wanted the exotic DX it was certainly out there. Superb conditions on the higher bands and less crowded that usual on the lower. We had run out of stations to work by about 9pm with Bex and Chris winding the station down slightly early. The rest of the evening we spent relaxing and chatting about a wonderful weekend's radio. What more could you ask for ...good radio, good company and good food!

The Higher Bands

Wonderful conditions today on 10/15 metres. The beam is finally aloft and loads of good DX worked. Highlights today so far include Swaziland, Jamaica, Sudan, Paraquay and Uraquay on 10 metres, plenty of others like Indonesia and Martinque on 15 metres. The score around mid afternoon is 300,000 points. To top it all its like midsummer here, almost too nice to be indoors. Kev G6FKE is chef tonight, he promises a wonderful corned beef hash to keep us all going until midnight!

Interesting Conditions!

The first 24 hours of CQWW are nearly over. It has been an interesting time and very much different to last year. Saturday has seen a more laid back approach to the contest with emphasis being on working the multipliers rather than going for quantity of contacts . Highlights for today include Cocos Keeling Island (VK9), Nepal and Antigua. Plenty of South African and South American contacts. The score at 4pm was 100,000 points. Tomorrow will see us probably running on a frequency and using the multipliers to good advantage. All the bands, including 10 metres, have been open, with 15 metres a firm favourite. Unfortunately the rotator is now almost totally goosed and will need some serious maintenance once the weekend is over. Hopefully get the mast wound up in better weather tomorrow. By the way the Chili Con Carne was fabulous and we have left enough for the lads on the nightshift!

Getting Ready

Well one of the biggest contests of the year is nearly Upon us. Tonight the station will be made ready and everything double checked. The weather at the moment does not look too bad for the weekend, speed of the wind being the major factor as we could do with getting the beam aloft. The contest starts at 1am saturday morning and ends midnight on sunday. Good luck to all stations taking part, its going to be a long weekend!

A New Member!

We would like to welcome Paul G4TUZ as a new member of Sands. Paul joined us for our weekly meeting last night which, as it happens, was a very busy one. Plenty to discuss including CQWW which is only a few days away. Kev G6FKE and Linda G0YLM have volunteered to keep the troups well fed and watered during this 48 hour contest. It will be interesting to see how conditions compare with the last 2 years, especially on the lower bands in the early hours of the morning. Of course the clocks also go back one hour the same weekend which always throws everybody a bit. We will be using a Yaesu FT1000 MKV at 100w, a Force 12 C3SS beam for 10/15/20m with a trap dipole for the lower bands. Win-Test again will be used throughout the entire contest.

Friends Visiting

Last monday we were visited by a longtime Amateur friend of Linda and Ian's, Herre PE1MTT and his wife Ada. They were visiting with Linda and Ian for the week and came down to our monday night meeting. It was a good night, well attended and we all joined in with the pub quiz later! Herre and Ada returned home safely yesterday but it was good to see them and have a good natter.

Incoming QSL Cards

We are starting to receive some QSL cards directly to us. Please bear with us for return QSL cards as it may take several weeks to get the cards printed. It is great to know so many of you require them and we hope that the finished article will be pleasing on the eye! The one above is not the one that will be going out to you, just an idea from one of our club members. In the meantime work is continuing on the home website with several ideas influencing the end result! Hopefully the new site will be online later this week.

Hunt for QSL Cards

Trying to find a good source of QSL cards for the Mull trip. We have managed to contact LZ5DB who is based in Bulgaria, he seems very good and very cheap as well and can even print out our logs from an ADIF file to save us writing them all out by hand. Should work out around 100 Euros+ postage for 2000. www.qslservice.com Take a look!

Rochdale QRP Convention

Today was a very successful day for us at the QRP Convention at Rochdale, we managed to raise nearly £100 for our club funds. It was also a good day out, the rally was excellent, the lectures were brilliant and the traditional "Pie & Peas" just as good as ever. Next year is the last year that it will be held at this venue but, we are sure, will continue on with the organisers finding new premises nearby!

Webpage Workout

This evening Chris and Ian will have a look at upgrading our homepage website. At the moment it runs under Plone, a new version of this has recently been released and adds a few nice additions. The aim is to make the webpages more eye-catching to look at and add a few more features!

New Broom!

Well thats another AGM over and done with. Ian G0VGS has stepped down as Chairman after his 2 year stint in the hot seat. The baton now passes to Chris M0DWK who, with Kev G6FKE as Vice Chairman, will be sure to do a fine job! The whole AGM took just 30 minutes, which is our idea of how it should be, which left plenty of time for general chat....about radio of course ;-)

The Adventures Continue....

Now that the Mull trip is over for this year we will get back to doing contests and anything else that takes our fancy. Tonight is our AGM and we are sure there will be plenty to discuss. The next big contest is in a months time and we will be preparing for that. Also it is the Rochdale QRP Convention this coming weekend and we have a table there to raise some funds.
In the meantime please drop by to these pages from time to time as we mean to continue letting you all know what we get up to, whatever it is it will be fun!

Memories

The final logs and photos are now uploaded, go to the the Sands homepages at Http://www.m0scg.org.uk to look. Hope you enjoy them.

Safe Home

Here you can see us as we landed back at the mainland. We arrived back in Morecambe at 4pm yesterday. all is packed away and its back to reality. The last of the logs will be on the homesite later and, once we have sorted the best of the photos out, they will be in the gallery for you to look at.