This year the team decided that we should give multi-two a try. This is new territory for us as the station is optomised for multi-single events and we would be straying outside our comfort zone somewhat. That said we gave it a go!

Before the start we pulled the existing computers and set up a laptop wi-fi network in the shack and loaded up Win-Test. The laptops worked a treat without serious issues but offers us greater flexibility in terms of networking with other laptops for spotting or partnering (a facility on Win-Test that allows a 2nd op to partner the main op using a separate computer).

The WX was horrible and Saturday night was very windy and the towers were at their limit, it could have all been over as we were battered by the storm. Luckily they held up but very scary all the same. I had to lower them today as the gale force winds returned and reaked havoc in the garden. Our hanging baskets were ripped off the wall and garden furniture was destroyed. The towers would definitely have gone over.

Well conditions on the HF bands were really good, it was nice that 10m was open and we worked a lot of stuff there.

Some technical issues came to light that I will have to address in terms of filtering and switching but this was a good exercise as to where improvements can be made to improve our performance.

Strategy is less demanding in this category but still important so a new learning curve here! Our rates were good but a few more “mults” would have bumped our score up considerably. That said our tally was 1141 prefixes and a total of 14,311,563 points.

So for our first effort at multi-two 14.3 million is reasonable, certainly a lot of fun and a good time had by all.

73 Paul G6PZ