Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Members of Sands Contest Group would like to wish all of you Seasons Greetings and all the best for 2009. We hope next year is a peaceful one and look forward to working some of you on the air in next year's contests.
This last year has been a very busy one for Sands. We have welcomed several new members, enjoyed a fantastic trip to the Isle of Jura and improved our standing in all the contests we have taken part in. Sands now look forward to our fifth year with high hopes for 2009 and one or two surprises in store. Thank you to everyone who has supported us and taken the time to have a contact with us on the air. Have a good holiday and see you in the New Year!

Welcome Barrie

A big welcome to our newest member Barrie G1JYB who has foolishly decided to join our merry band, a decision taken whilst he was sober as well! On another note, the exam that Mike and Matt took on Monday evening seemed to go very well and the results should be out shortly before Christmas. We also hope to be tackling the rest of the QSL cards this weekend and hope to get them off to the Bureau before the New Year.

Good Party!

Everyone had a good Christmas Party .Good food, good company, what more can you ask for? Thanks again to Frank and Brian for the excellent organisation.

Good luck Guys!

Just to wish two of our members good luck with the "full" licence examination that they are sitting this evening. Both Matt and Mike have studied hard for the last few months as have Sam and Faris, who have decided to wait until after the New Year before sitting their exams.

Happy Sticking!

Had a marathon session today sticking labels on the QSL cards for Jura. It takes a while to get everyone working like a well oiled machine but we managed it and got at least 3000 cards ready to go! Refreshments in the form of Scottish Shortbread, hot mince pies and choccy biccies were provided by Frank and Brian! Just need to get some more time together to get the rest done.
On another note it is Sands Christmas party tomorrow with over twenty of us in attendance in our best party attire. A new venue for this year, we will have a full report and photos for you shortly.........

QSL Cards Are Here!

The QSL cards for Jura are now with us with thanks to Nasko LZ1YE who, again, has done a wonderful job of printing them and getting them to us. Thanks also to Brian who designed and worked so hard on getting our ideas on how the card should look together!
All 6000 sticky labels are now printed and hopefully some of us can get together this coming weekend to do the dreaded task of sticking them all on the back of the cards! Hope to have the cards on the way to the RSGB this next week so they can be sent on to the various destinations. Also have uploaded the logs to EQSL for anyone who collects on there!

A Great Weekend

As you can see we had a great weekend's contesting despite the weather being truly appalling on Saturday. Conditions on the bands were very good, particularly on 15 metres and we certainly worked some good DX including China, Thailand, Singapore and plenty of Australians!


We beat last years points score, which for us is what its all about. This is our first time at Andrew's new home and the location proved to be an excellent one for radio and gave us a chance to use the Spiderbeam for the first time in this particular contest, its nice when you have a big back garden to play in!

This Weekend's Contest

Getting ready for this weekend's big 48 hour contest at Andrew's home. It is fine at the moment, as the sun has just gone down, but strong winds and heavy rain forecast for tomorrow. The location is quite exposed so we hope that all is lashed down tightly enough! Just putting the station together in the house at the moment for the start in a few hours time! Good luck in the contest folks!

QSL Cards and Things

The QSL cards for Jura are designed and will go to print this next week, so should be posted out in the next few weeks. Still a busy time for us with other things as well. It was our AGM last week and Sands is now into its fifth year of existence, hard to know where the time has gone. Frank has very kindly volunteered to be our treasurer this year ( most people run a mile when they hear this role mentioned ) and has the joy of sorting out all the finances from our trip!!
Next weekend one of the longest contests in the calendar, the CQ WW DX Contest which lasts the full 48 hours. This year we will be operational from Andrew's home, he has a big back garden and it means we are able to put the Spiderbeam up on one of the masts. Also coming up is the Christmas meal and it looks like we are going to have quite a few guests this year, the more the merrier!
This morning several of us are off to the QRP Convention, at a new venue this year near Halifax. This is always a good rally, we didn't have time to organise a table this year for club funds due to the sheer time it has taken to organise the Jura trip, still it will be good just to have a wander round and meet up with old friends!

Amateur Radio Training

Kev and Ian, two of our members, are involved with a new Amateur Radio training website. It launched this weekend and aims to bring together training material from the internet into a central site. It also has the added advantage of a forum to allow potential licensees and amateurs wishing to progress through the licensing system to interact with each other and registered instructors who are always on hand to help! The forum also has a whole series of mini-lessons (Learning Curves) available to registered users, registration is free and simple from the forum pages. Also available on the site are sample exam questions and an FAQ. Anyone is welcome, at any level of licence, whether to learn, improve or to teach and guide!

Click here to visit Amateur Radio Training

Some Photographs from Jura

Spiderbeam and the sea

The 80 metre station

Kev G6FKE

Ian G0VGS

Paul M1PAF


Portable 20m Moxon

Antenna Farm

Logs For Jura

The logs for Jura are now online. You can see if you worked us and on what band by entering your callsign in the search box proved.

Click here to see if you are in the Jura Logs

Home Safely

Finally another photograph for you. This shows the vertical 20m moxon that Steve and Paul used down on the beach! We are all home intact and the last person got to bed about 01:00 GMT on Tuesday morning. The rest of the day was spent unpacking and unwinding and an early night for all. More photographs will be added this week to the blog showing the operators and antennas at MS0SCG as we get sorted.

Thats It Folks!

The last contact has been worked! May we thank all of you who took the time and trouble to make contact with us over the last week. It has certainly been a time to remember and we have met a lot of people and made a lot of new friends. The weather could not have been better and although band conditions could have been better, with no chance to work 10m 0r 15m, we have still had 6000 log entries. Once we get back home we will upload the vast majority of photographs and the logs to the main website and put a few on this blog as well, its a shame our internet access was not as good as we hoped. So farewell to the wonderful Isle of Jura from all of us at Sands and Workington ARC but we have a feeling we may well return in the future.....

The Final morning!

Just had the most fantastic rainbow here as we sit down to breakfast for the last time at Jura House. We have been made so welcome and we are very sad to be leaving. The ferry leaves at 14:00 GMT so we still have time to get those final few entries in the log! Now its just a question of slowly packing the gear that isn't needed in the van for the long drive back home, we don't expect to get back until midnight. In the meantime listen out for those final few calls on 80m and 20m!