Crawley Amateur Radio Club
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What's in a wavelength?VHF NFD - July 2008VHF radio never ceases to surprise me. Yes, certain parameters are pretty much the same but you never know quite how it is going to turn out. This year once again the RATS teamed up with the Crawley Club to have a go at VHF NFD. With some of the regulars unable to take part the organization fell to Eugene Sully and Alex Sheppard, who rallied the troops and brought along a number of very welcome new faces. It was decided almost by default, and mainly on travel grounds, to go back to the site overlooking Folkestone harbour and despite dire warnings of Bluetooth vaccinations - the bovine variety - and the field being full of cows when we all duly met up at The Valiant Sailor on the Friday afternoon the field turned out to be empty and it was a pleasant afternoon. It did not take too long to get cracking, particularly with some feminine muscle power on the winches. One disadvantage of Folkestone is that everything has to be transported there so there are not so many towers to play with. We had opted for the KISS solution - ie a proven system on the three bands, the 6, 2, and 70 cm, we were attempting. I towed down the large tower with all the aerials suitably attached - or so I thought. Having got to the site I drove to the end to deliver the four aerials and poles for the 70 cm station. These were detached from one side of the tower and I drove back to the 2 m station. After about 100 yards on the bumpy track there was an ominous noise. A bungee cord had been loosened and another one broke depositing to 17 ele 2 m aerials with predictable results. Fortunately the booms were intact but many of the elements were shattered. There was nothing for it but to rebuild them. Fortunately the local B & Q had the appropriate 8 mm aluminium tube in stock - just as well we hadn't gone to the Orkneys. Once the materials were in hand we delayed the repairs to erect the other two 9 ele yagis on a couple of scaffold poles. Soon up and running the second contact to answer a CQ was an OK about 850 kms away with about 50 watts. Conditions had been up for quite a bit of the week but all that was to change… Things hadn't gone well for Andy, G7FWE, that week. His engine in the Land Rover had failed - again - only a few days before the contest and there were more problems to come. With a hired van to the rescue the gamma match on the 6 m aerial broke and his ICOM 7400 lost all output… With the aerial repaired an SOS was sent to Tim Trew, G8JXV, who had yet to set off, to bring a replacement rig. He not only brought that - I believe a trusty FT736 - but a vital aerial analyser as well. One advantage for Andy was that he could operate from within the van somewhat protected from the elements. Come Saturday all three systems were up and running actually well in time for the start of the contest. This had to be something of a record. We sorely missed 23 cms and Derek Atter's valuable know how but he is still recovering from his knee op. Well enough I'm pleased to say to give us a call on 2 m from the Crawley Club on the Sunday morning. Despite being ready to run we had rather omitted to organize an operator rota but with a few minutes to the teams were in place. As I mentioned earlier conditions had been good but the weather forecast for most of the UK was poor with a depression moving over most of the country. High winds and rain were due but having checked with the Met office website for their 84 hour barometric forecasts the far south east of the UK appeared it might escape the worst. So it proved to be. We certainly did not escape the winds which rose alarmingly during Saturday. Aerials were by no means at full height though the 70 cm operators were undeterred by the continual bending of the mast. During the night the winds died down but the weather came back with a vengeance on Sunday morning, taking the kitchen tent clean away and making taking the kit down quite tricky. To cap it all the rain came just as we were packing up! Results were interesting or at least as far as can be seen from the claimed scores posted so far on the VHFCC web site. (One of the major groups has not posted any scores yet) G5LK/P on 2 m with 495 contacts and a claimed score of 166,000 points - with the next best claimed score of 350 QSOs and 119,000 points - seem to have had it mostly their own way this year. Interestingly there seems to be no doubt that good results for 70 cm and up appear to be more easily obtained from the site in Suffolk . The year we went there both 70 and 23 did better than from Folkestone but 2 m and 6 m did not. So what's in a wavelength? Very many thanks to everyone for all their help which made an entry possible. Let's hope that next year we can compete on all five bands. Peter G0VVE |
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