bit wobbly - holding on to it for grim life and seem to be very unsteady on my feet, while Ian, G0VGS, guys it. He says "hold it steady Tim" I reply "it's my wellies - they're too tight for me - making me wobbly!!" Ian creased up and reckoned this worthy of his repertoire of funny stories. Found cause of problem when I took my wellies off, there inside soles was a neatly folded pair of thick over socks - no wonder I was wobbly!!!
On
Friday afternoon Ian gave me a refresher on contest operation of the
rigs and PC software, however found myself on my own at start of
contest on Friday
night and due to apprehension didn't get stuck in until 1/2 hour or
so in - on Search and Pounce. Also forgot command to change op
(Ctrl O), so my first session was logged as G1T instead of G4DPT,
oops!! (Thanks to Nick for putting me right on Saturday night.)
40m
was densely packed with stations so stayed on Search & Pounce
- one exotic DX station in a permanent pile up alluded me for a while
- although I had worked him easily as G4DPT 5 by 9 both ways just
before contest. 40m stayed open until I went home at 04:45 (local)
feeling slightly weary, but satisfied and I'd had fun; although my
hourly contact rate was appalling compared with last year when I had
a clear night run frequency on 80 metres with a pile up of Stateside
stations calling me. Passed Hughie at crossroads near Oysterber
Farm, on my way home, and managed to shout loud enough to stop him
for a few words about the contest ....
Wasn't
back again until 23:30 (local) Saturday night. The long distance DX
on 40m was excellent, better than Friday night – including some
rare prefixes - although quite a lot of stations were dupes by then.
I regretted having to leave half way through Saturday night at about
03:30 (02:30 Zulu) when the band was still wide open, but was
grateful for the extra hours sleep after previous night!!
An excellent contest result, despite initial lack of entries on the operating Spreadsheet before the start of the contest. My personal thanks to everyone involved especially Ian, G0VGS, without whose help, dedication and operating we would have had less fun and a much lower overall score!! Suggest we consider putting up 80m antenna next time.
An excellent contest result, despite initial lack of entries on the operating Spreadsheet before the start of the contest. My personal thanks to everyone involved especially Ian, G0VGS, without whose help, dedication and operating we would have had less fun and a much lower overall score!! Suggest we consider putting up 80m antenna next time.
73
to all,
Tim,
G4DPT
Blog Entry by Nick 2E0TBT
Arriving Sunday the 40m vertical had been removed due to the fierce winds we encountered during the night so was best to remove the antenna, leaving us with 20m, 15M & 10m. For the most part of the day, 20m &10m was the busier bands with long periods of time on these bands, 15m was hit and miss. When we finished the contest roughly around 20:45pm that evening we was very impressed to break the "million" points and worked 113 DXCC over the weekend.
G1T Operators during the weekend was 2E0TBT (myself), G0VGS (Ian), 2E0DTG (Dave), G4UME (Hugo), G4DPT (Tim), G1TLQ (Steve) and G0LWU (Andrew).
Nick Hall 2e0tbt
Sadly I was unable to make the event, my thanks to Tim and Nick for their thoughts on the contest. I know all who attended had a good event which was relaxed with a gentle sprinkling of humour
