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of the contest
Although we enter a lot of contests throughout the year, VHF NFD is the one time in the year when the majority of the club membership get involved. We had decided to enter into the spirit of a 'field day' rather than a true 'contest' - we were there to have fun, have a nice barbecue and social, and we didn't really care too much if the stations went unmanned for a little while - slipping fom 12th place to 13th place wouldn't concern us too much.
New this year was an antenna inspired by the Chesham & Maidenhead club's picture from the 1999 writeup. We put 23cms and 70cms on the same tower which after a bit of worry didn't in fact fall over.
It was interesting to see the different strategies in use by the different teams in their choice of band selections - I think this will have had an interesting effect in the results.
6m: When checking 6m half an hour before the contest, the first station I heard was a CN, so I knew this was going to be fun ! True, it was like 'shooting fish in a barrel' but it still requires skill to win - albeit a different skill to operating on 23 !
2m I was in earshot of the 23cms station on Sunday when it burst into life with the sound of a "CQ 2m Sporadic E" from a local station. (We transvert from 2m - but the CQ call was coming from over half a mile away from a neighbouring fixed station !) I wandered over to the 2m caravan to find our operator working an OM station. I was handed the microphone and quickly worked a few more, and ER6A/P at 2205 km. Even GW8ZRE/P out Backpacking worked some DX stations. He seemed extremely happy, despite the appalling weather, which is always a good sign that the contest is good if it takes your mind off the oppressive WX !
4m, 70cm and 23cm were seemed fairly quiet from our location - it will be interesting to see if many stations did desert these bands this year. We managed a good degree of passing QSOs between 2m and 70cm, and 70cm and 23cm which was pleasing to be able to 'generate' a QSO out of the noise.
We also had a go at the 40m / 80m QRP Contest too which made it 7 bands QRV. A DC to Light Field Day next year anyone ?
Casualties: 2 voice keyers never worked from the start (the third one survived), our IC475 gave up just before the end (for the third year running !), some squashed heliax, numerous overcooked sausages, and the pair of socks we hung from the 4m antenna barely survived the torrential shower just after the end of the contest.
Scores
Q kms
6m G0WRC/P
Restricted 96 114822
4m G4WAC/P
Low Power 35 5251
2m G1WAC/P
Low Power 108 32661
70cm G7WAC/P Open
40 8588
23cm G0EYO/P Open
27 3003