Weekend VHF and HF activity by Dave M0TAZ.
This weekend I took part in the 144 MHz trophy contest. The contest attracts activity from all over Europe, and on Sunday it also coincides with the low power back packer series. The contest has a number of categories from 24 Hrs to 6 Hrs I decided to opt for a casual entry on Saturday only, operating for just under 4 Hrs. The contest was very busy, with a lot of high power multi antenna UK stations with exceptional signals.
Using a Icom 7100 with 50w and a 12m mast supporting a 9e tonna I was able to work 41 station. Some DX highlights for the day was
DL0GTH in JN50 @741 KM.
DA0FF in JN40 @ 688 KM
DL0GM in JO31 @520 KM
You can view the claimed scores here
On Sunday I decided to work a few HF stations, the RSGB SSB Field day continued until 2PM local, so set up a simple station using 100w from the Icom into a doublet antenna 20m per leg fed with 300 Ohm ribbon cable.
With the able assistance of Fred G3SVK we worked 35 stations quickly before getting sidetracked by some JA stations calling on 21 MHz. After a few calls I was able to work
20m per leg doublet
JA7NVF
JA1OGI
JM1PLN
I also operated on 5 MHz and was able to work Mal G3KEV/p in Scarborough and Peter G4LNA in Hertfordshire.
A map showing the QSO completed on 144 MHz is available here.
Dave M0TA
