Saturday

Wonderful weather so far, although quite breezy. Last night we managed to get one mast up and the other one ready to accept the Spiderbeam. This morning, by about 11am all things were in place. The 10 meg internet link is working well after a few initial teething problems. This afternoon Mick M0BZR was with us and had a hefty spell on the 20m station, its been a while since Mick has had chance to do any serious contesting. People have been down to see what is going on and refreshments suitably given. By around 5pm we had worked about 300 stations and the bands seem quite busy. It is getting towards meal time now and after that it will depend on how long the higher bands stay open as to what bands will take us through the night.

IOTA This Weekend

Yes folks its that time of year again and the weather forecast sounds a bit grim. It is amazing how quickly the year has passed and IOTA 2007 sees us back at Sunderland Point for this 24 hour contest. We will probably set up the antennas and masts on Friday evening but, again, it depends on the weather. Kev is cooking for the crew on Saturday evening and has promised a "spicy" sausage casserole! The new 50' mast has arrived and so have the QSL cards for the GB2AOS event earlier this year. The plan is to write the QSL cards over the weekend while anyone not currently operating the contest has time on their hands. Paul is providing us with a microwave link to the university enabling us to have internet access to GB7MBC for DXCluster information. The residents have no broadband facilities and this is the only way we can use the dxcluster as "packet" access is no longer possible.

End of Contest

Finally finished an hour ago and uploaded the logs. This years total is over 600 qso's. The last 3 hours have been very busy indeed and the weather was finally calm enough to get the beam to full height. Gary has done most of the operating for the last few hours, and Kev is still in bed, as usual, but he was awake for nearly 36 hours. Now to have a quick look at Gary's Elecraft K2, which for some unknown reason, fails to work!
Good weekend!

This Year's IARU

This weekend's contest has been fairly slow going compared to last year but this morning we are making steady progress. Just around 150,000 points at this time. There has been plenty of good DX about with South America being very good. Two of our operators are asleep at the moment with Gary and Ian running on 15m at the moment.

A Winning Streak!

Glad to report that we won first place in our country in last years IARU contest. Lets hope we do as well in this years event even if the weather forces us into an indoor location!

IARU HF World Championship 2007

The weekend 14/15th July sees one of the big contests of the year. The IARU HF Championships lasts a full 24 hours and this will be the third year we have taken part. This year we will return to our field at Quernmore, which is the first location we operated from in 2004. This year the bands should be extremely busy despite the terrible WWV reports of the last few months. Careful attention will focus on stations operating within their bandplans so one mode does not interfere with another. Hopefully the weather will be kind to us and we anticipate a good weekend!

A Good Addition To Our Collection

Ian G0VGS has jut put an order in for the New Elecraft K3. He hope to take delivery of it in September, maybe in time for SSB Field Day ;-) Hopefully it will see plenty of action during the next few years and maybe a few more of these radios will appear with other group members! Meanwhile we are busy planning for the 2 big contests in July, the IARU and later IOTA which will see us again at Sunderland point.

QSL Cards from GB2AOS

QSL cards will be on order from next week and hopefully will be sorted and sent out by the end of June. There is also now an EQSL entry for the callsign and the logs will be uploaded in the next few days.

New Mast on Order

We have just sent off for our second 50 foot spidermast from Germany and it should be here by next week. This will give us a lot more versatility with the Spiderbeam and means we can put the dipoles on a separate matching mast. We have 2 big contests coming up in July both of which will be portable operations so we need to get some more guys for the new mast made and get everything measured out!

Sunny Sunday

Today started off with toast for breakfast made on an open coal fire! The weather was sunny again and a little warmer. The bands were quieter this morning but plenty of UK contacts made and the 20 metre station has been busy all day with both Stateside and EU contacts. We are now packing the stations down and will look at detail in the logs tomorrow....
A good weekend!!

400 Contacts So Far

It was about 11.00am this morning when both stations were finally up and running together. It has been a busy day with loads of visitors coming to see what it was all about, both Amateur and people who had never come across our hobby before. All operators are working pileups on both stations and 40 meters has been particularly good for short skip. The local people are fantastic and spent well into the early hours of the morning with us! Today is proving to be a fantastic day and has seen some great radio, more reports tomorrow........

A Lovely Evening For It

It was a lovely evening down at Sunderland point. The 50' mast took a bit of getting up but by about 21.00 gmt we had the dipoles out for the lower bands and both stations set up. Putting the Spiderbeam together now and looking forward to a busy day. Bex is the chef tonight so we won't go hungry.

Weather is looking good!

All looks set for fair weather this weekend for our Special Event Station. Antennas will be up on Friday and the station set up and tested before starting with the GB2AOS callsign early on Saturday morning. We aim to work until late Sunday evening on as many bands as conditions permit. Check an earlier entry on this blog for the history of Sunderland Point and links to this event and we look forward to hearing you on the air.....

Lets Go Fly a Kite....

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First trials today of our prototype box kite which we will use to fly antennas for the lower HF bands. The kite you see was quickly put together using bamboo, insulation tape and polythene bags in little under an hour by Chris and Bex. It is not the most beautiful kite you will ever see but it flies and is quite capable of lifting a long wire!! More experimentation will take place over the next few weeks, perhaps with several designs, then we will decide which design suits the group best and get out and do some simple, portable radio.

GB2AOS Special Event Station

The end of April will see us at Sunderland Point for a Special Event Station marking 200 years since the Abolition of Slavery. The station will be active over the weekend 28/29th April on as many bands as we can manage, conditions permitting!
Sunder or asunder means apart and when the tide comes in this tiny village, which was once a thriving port, it finds itself cut off from the mainland at Overton.

Just over a mile of single track road winding over the mud flats and sand marshes connects it to the mainland at low tide. It's hard to imagine that once ships from the West Indies and North America docked here, plying their trade in cotton, sugar and human lives as part of the infamous 18th century slave trade. But there are reminders, and most of the people who come are looking for Sambo's Grave.

Sambo (or Samboo, as the gravestone indicates) -- I don't suppose anyone knows what his name really was -- was an African and probably no more than a boy. He was a black slave who arrived at the port with his master. He was taken ill, probably with some European disease to which he had no immunity, and he died. Because he was black and not a Christian he was not buried in consecrated ground. His body was interred in land that was once behind the inn, but is now a remote spot on the windswept shore with nothing between him and the vast sea that brought him from his homeland so far away.

For a long time the grave was unmarked, until some years later a retired schoolmaster discovered the story and raised some money for a memorial. He also wrote the epitaph that now marks the grave:

'Full many a Sand-bird chirps upon the Sod
And many a moonlight Elfin round him trips
Full many a Summer's Sunbeam warms the Clod
And many a teeming cloud upon him drips.
But still he sleeps -- till the awakening Sounds
Of the Archangel's Trump now life impart
Then the GREAT JUDGE his approbation founds
Not on man's COLOUR but his worth of heart.'

Sentimental it may be, but its contents show an awareness of changing attitudes towards people from other places.

Now the grave is well visited and fresh flowers have always been laid by people who come from not only curiosity but maybe also a twinge of conscience that such a thing could have happened not just to 'Samboo' but to countless other humans like him.