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Wild winter nights
6 February 2013 | by The UKAC contest series is a vhf contest that runs throughout the year on Tuesday evenings. Each Tuesday has a different band allocated and last night’s was the turn of the 2m band.
This normally quiet band (up here at least) has plenty of activity to keep even the most relaxed operators busy for 2 and a half hours. I count myself in that category. Although last nights entertainment was far from relaxing.
I operate portable from ai reasonable hill close to home. The car is my qth with the ft 817 providing the noisey end and a portable mast with my excellent 5 ele lfa yagi doing the ‘pointing’. A drive on plate holds the outside parts in place. Except last night when very strong winds were rocking the yagi and the car so much I thought I was going to end up with a mast and antenna as a bonnet ornament.
By 9:30 I’d had enough but tried a few more station before packing up and retreating to a cosy house.
It’s a very addictive thing this contesting but I really think I should get extra points for enduring fierce weather!
3 Responses to “Wild winter nights”
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Good morning Alex, there is truth to what you say regarding contests. For being outdoors, QRP or QRPp power, using indoor antennas (attic or otherwise) mobile op’s and so on should be categories as well in contests….but are not.
It would be a nice way to level the playing field and have those with similar setup’s going up against each other.
Mike
I too, worked during the 2m UKAC on Tuesday 5th but from home using the FT817 and my 2m halo antenna in the attic. My best dx was M0BUL/P from near Ludlow in Shropshire in the English Midlands and a distance of 118 miles. There were Gs working stations in Holland and Belgium and had serials numbers up into the 070s. I worked 19 stations in just over two hours. Hrad work but lots of fun nevertheless. In among it all I cam across a net on 2m SSB where the main subject of discussion was false teeth!! Such a variety of stuff.
I think I need extra points for having a huge hill in the way to all the southern stations!
It’s very addictive and I have found another spot a bit further down the coast and maybe I can catch the false teeth chatter