Its 28th February:
March see's Sands Contest Group taking part in the First ARRL contest of the year From Hancock's Radio Hut. Our thoughts and best wishes go out to all the Contest Groups and communities who have suffered with flooding not only of their properties but also land and live stock.
Dave and Hughie sharing the load
I'll have to speak to them about smiling
Contesting is a serious event and you don't
have time for smiling
The Station itself consists of:
a K3 and automatic linear amplifier designed for the K3
A Shuttle computer with backup for logging.
During the course of the weekend I will be asking members for reports that will end up in this Blog along with some photos. (The photographs so far have been supplied by G0VGS) and heres the a report from Nick 2E0TBT Highlighted in Blue.
I arrived around 8am on the Saturday morning (1st March) the bands were noisy and active. Ian G0VGS was operating and after a brief fault on the 20m vertical (due to heavily saturated ground with the recent heavy rain spells) it was necessary for a alternative 20m vertical to be constructed.
I (2E0TBT) started to operate the station, by now many members of the SANDS contest group had arrived and the shack was a good atmosphere. The pickings for 10m was incredible on both days, 15m was also a busy band. Not so much contest on 40m during the day as the "inter G" was waking, plus it didn't seem fair to jump over a long standing weekly net or adjacent frequencies!
20m was open, bearing in mind the rules stated only 6 band changes maximum per hour so rich pickings was also on many bands so that also had to keep a watchful eye.
Our Saturday Evening Meal
As usual we stopped on the Saturday night for our evening meal thanks to Barrie, Kathy and Stephany who asked her son Spencer to make a Homemade Steak Pie with a melt in your mouth crust filled with chunks of succulent steak and a proper beef gravy. The green look was created by the Camera for some reason, the crust round the edge of the pie was closer to the correct colour and it was as good as ever.
For pudding we were treated to Splodge Cake made to a secret family recipe. The meal was topped off with a choice of tea or coffee.
On Sunday the contest for me became much more of a challenge as many dupes was heard and found, but sure enough during the afternoon many new stations from USA and Canada was waking the bands up on 10m, 15m & 20m which found the main bulk of the contest. The only states I never heard or worked was North Dakota and South Dakota, maybe one day! The contest call (G1T - Golf One Tango) always raises a few comments and laughs.
Overall the contest went very well, plenty of snacks & coffee to help keep awake!!! Now the G1T journey continues with the CQ WW DX Contest at the end of March 2014..
73 Nick
Nick discovering the Contesters Bacon and Banjo Egg Butty
Nick has yes to discover the proper contesters Breakfast I and others used to make:
This consists of a Lancashire Oven Bottom Barmcake, Two Sausages, Two rashers of bacon, Mushrooms and for those who can take a Banjo egg with an unbroken yoke or for the wimps an egg with a broken yoke.
Operator for the weekend included, Damien G0LLG, Ian G0VGS, Hughie G4UME, Frank G8BME, Brian G0RDH, Nick 2E0TBT, TIM.
The WPX contest at the end of March had its trials and tribulations but we pleased to report the group achieved it's first 1 million points.
The WPX contest at the end of March had its trials and tribulations but we pleased to report the group achieved it's first 1 million points.
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