CQ WW RTTY 09

Serge arrived from the Ukraine for this one feeling pretty beat after his long journey. He wanted to catch some sleep before the start but only managed a couple of hours after some set up issues with the computers. I have been working hard to get our new 80m 4 square ready for Serge but it was not to be as the control and phasing units are still in Russia with Vlad RA4LW. We had planned on Vlad being here to set it to work but at unfortunately at the last moment a visa issue has delayed his departure. I decided to hook up one element of the new 4sq for the 80m aerial which worked very well with strong runs into NA and some good DX too. Generally tho’ 40m and 20m were the money bands with 15 following up behind but 10m was almost non existant other than the usual batch of South Americans that we always seem to find no matter what. The first night was buzzing on 80 and 40m but unfortunately not to be repeated on the 2nd as the bands just died. Serge decided to get his head down and attack the bands again after some rest. 20M was not too bad during both days but 15 was always a struggle although some good DX was worked at times into the far East but never enough to keep any sort of rate going for long. To sum up then, generally poor conditions on the higher bands with some exceptions. The station worked well with a few issues here and there. Always great to see Serge and maybe learn a little more about RTTY operation from a great guy and op.

     QSO   G   EU   DX   Pts   DXCC  CQ  States
80m  516  13  383  120  1139   56    14  28
40m  953  11  490  452  2347   90    31  48
20m 1179  9   430  740  3089   97    33  55
15m  354  7   180  167  868    82    25  27
10m    8  0   3    5    21     5     4   0

    3010  40  1486 1484 7464   330   107 158

Score: 7464*595 = 4441080 points

73 Paul

These  views are looking down from a 45 foot cherry picker that I use for my electrical business but it also comes in very handy for aerial maintenance at the aerial farm.

As you can see the radial system is being installed, at the moment there are 40 radial wires for each vertical. Most of the wires are 66 ft 1.5mm pvc stranded copper in a pretty blue colour but the white ones are multicore intruder alarm cable that I had left over from various jobs. Some say that its a case of diminishing returns after 30 any way ? May be add some more later !

The wires are pinned down on to the grass with 3mm galvanised garden fencing  wire bent in to a “u” shaped staple and hammered home over the wire. With time the wires will become invisible as the grass grows over them.

73 Paul

This project has been a long time coming, for a while now it was realised that our 80m performance was some what lacking and Sergei UT5UDX suggested that a 4 sq might be the way to go.

As my neighbour keeps her horses in our field I did not want to have lots of guy wires all ove the place so I needed a design that utilised self supporting elements. During a trawl around the net I came across John’s (G4ATA) four sq site. http://www.4-square.co.uk/uk/g4ata/index.html .

His 4 sq design was just what I was looking for so I decided to give it a go and I would like to thank John for his advice and encouragement.

My 4sq design is slightly different here and there but more so with the phasing system and will not be using the Comtek acb-4 Hybrid unit but a home brew system built by Vlad RA4LW, more on this later.

So far the build is progressing  well and  I will update the site as it goes with pictures and basic build info.

One of the four 69ft elements had its first test when it was raised to the vertical last weekend with out mishap. This was encouraging as it prooved the system does work.

The next big job is installing the radial system that I’m not particulary looking forward to.

Hopefully it will be finished for the up coming  CQWW contests in a couple of months time.

73 Paul

Serge Rebrov UT5UDX

A truely stunning performance for Sergei UT5UDX at G6PZ to achieve a podium no 3 World finish. Considering some of the big guns up for this one I call this an amazing result. Station engineering plays a big part but there’s always room for improvement. The 80m 4 sq will soon be on line and this should help to maximise our scores. I think if we had it for this one Sergei would of had 2nd place World honours as our 80m performance was some what lacking as the bobtail failed just before the start. ( turned out to be a waterlogged coax coupler, but too wet and cold to fix in the dark )

Any way here’s looking forward to our next RTTY test !

73 Paul

G6PZ

I decided to do the 12 hour cw event this year . No problem I thought should be a breeze and an opportunity to put in a good score with a competitive station.

Well that was the plan, I have been suffering some difficulty with tennis elbow in my right arm after over doing it laying a block paved drive some months ago. It is very painful so I saw a consultant on Friday who injected my elbow with a shot of cortisone. That was OK but as the day went on my arm began to stiffen and by Saturday morning I could not bend it at all and the pain was awful.

The test started at 1pm local but I decided to wait a while and besides F1 qualifying was on so a good excuse to wait a while. I started at 3pm and from the off I knew that it was going to be difficult as I could not operate the key or key board well enough with my left hand. I stuck it out out until 8pm  but I was feeling pretty rough by now and quite dillusional being well dosed up with pain killers.

I was going to pack it in but after a break I was feeling a little better and went back to the shack at midnight.

I managed another 4 hours but it was tough going, I could generate good pileups but could not log them fast enough and it was almost impossible using the key.

The station was working really well but I wasn’t so I decided to call it a day.

I have just found out that the reason I was feeling so rotten was because of a side effect known as “cortersone flare” where the injection crystalises in the joint, just my luck as this only affects 2% of recipients.

Any way not a glowing report for IOTA 09 but there’s always  next year.

73 Paul

G6PZ

A quick vid on the G6PZ station line up featuring the IC-7800 and IC-7700:

 BAND   QSO DUP  PFX  POINTS   AVG
-----------------------------------
  160   132   3   54     318  2.41
   80   413   4  105    1266  3.07
   40  1044  17  298    3789  3.63
   20  1891  55  523    3967  2.10
   15   654   4   68     990  1.51
   10   460   4   56     660  1.43
-----------------------------------
TOTAL  4594  87 1104   10990  2.39
===================================
     TOTAL SCORE : 12 132 960

Ops: G6PZ, M0CLW, G4MJS, G3TJE

A small team of just three full-time operators this year for WPX CW and as a result, we decided before the contest that we wouldn’t be able to put in an earth-shattering score and would not take things too seriously. There were inevitably periods when two of us got tired around the same time, which meant that one of the two operating positions was unmanned for some hours during the contest.

Subsequently, our score of 12.1mil we are quite pleased with; M/2 is still a new category for us but we got ourselves involved with the like of e.g. DL1A, DQ4W etc who are also posting similar scores in the M/2 category.

As is typical with the CW part of WPX, and it falling in early summer, 20m offered runs of NA into the early hours with good signals. The contest was started with run 1 on 20m and run 2 on 40m and we’d logged some 250 QSOs after the first hour. As daylight broke, it became evident that stations further east of us in Europe were experiencing good conditions on 10m, but this simply didn’t seem to happen for us. However, we were able to work some Es into central and eastern Europe. At around 12z, it was decided to throw the MonstIR (which we used exclusively on 10m) onto North America, and, to our surprise, a couple of US stations made it into the log — but that was just the beginning, with a good run which lasted a good hour or so into the States. Most unexpected, but lots of fun all the same. An added benefit, of course, is that it was an additional band on which QSOs were made therefore meaning we didn’t hammer 20m too much.

20 and 15m conditions were pretty normal though good amounts of far eastern activity was also a pleasant surprise.

Conditions on the second day were not as good as the first and whilst we heard a couple of NA stations on 10m, the were dupes and nothing really fresh was heard or worked. However, Sunday morning saw an opening to the far east. Bagged a number of mults on 10m but we are quite pleased with the number of QSOs there…

We made our WPX CW M/2 score from last year (14.3mil) a benchmark which we didn’t reach but perhaps with a couple more ops (and therefore being able to man both radios for the full 48h) it would have been achievable.

Lots of fun had by all and a good effort. Thanks to all who called us!

The weekend has passed and I’m pleased to report it was really enjoyable, I made my way down to the G6PZ contest station Friday afternoon, getting to the station is super easy and I was in luck with the trains which seemed to be running like clock work! and arrived early so used the time to take some shots of the beach at Weston-super-mare.

MW0CRI operating RTTY

On arrival at the station we started setting up the three operating positions, this year we were going to operate some RTTY too so we setup Win-Test with MMTTY, this was the first time I’d used the MMTTY engine so it was a little bit hit and miss setting up but there seemed to be no issues.

Marconi Day lasted for the whole 24hrs of the 25th of April, and we run it contest style allowing us to work as many as possible and in theory helping those wanting to work as many stations as possible for the awards. Conditions early Saturday morning seemed very poor  but at day break 40m soon picked up, and we started to work into Europe at times the pile up never seemed to end either people really wanted to work the station or spotted the pile up and had to get it in the logbook!

Simon (M0CLW)

We also got some reasonably decent runs on 20m Saturday afternoon into North America to my surprise K2DBK took a short recording of me operating you can listen by going to http://k2dbk.com/gb6md.mp3conditions did seem to go very poor again around 4pm.

Peter (G4MJS)

Saturday evening seemed good we were able to work into JA on 40m CW without too much problem, but 80m SSB was hard work with poor conditions it seemed and lots of noise. Later on though during the last hour 11-midnight was able to get a really good run on 40m into the US and parts of SA, the run just kept going and gave me a serious adrenaline rush and stations were giving 59+ reports.

At the end of the day we made over 3000 QSOs,  there was always lots of banter going on in the background and plenty of beer lets hope next year is just as good.

The op’s at G6PZ  will morph into the GB6MD team next weekend for Marconi Day.

International Marconi Day ( I M D ) is on the 25th April, a celebration of Guglielmo Marconi’s Birthday. As usual the station will be hosting the event to represent Marconi’s Brean Down site.

On the 18th May 1897 the furthest wireless communication at the time from Lavernock point in South Wales to Brean Down Somerset was accomplished at a distance of 14 Kms.

Marconi spent a fair amount of time in this area and his influence has led to street’s to be named after him in Portishead, Clevedon, and Weston- Super -Mare. There’s even a plaque on the wall of the Italian Garden’s in the center of Weston dedicated to Marconi and his achievement’s.

There is an award for working IMD stations so we aim to work as many stations that we can in the 24 hrs of the event.  http://www.gb4imd.org.uk/awardstns2009.htm

Last year we made over 4k qso’s, this year we have a larger team and will be running 3 radio’s so hopefully we will smash that total.

We will be operating CW, SSB and some digital modes.

This is a fun event for us, and we like I M D so when you hear GB6MD please give us a call. For further details please see the IMD website.

http://www.gb4imd.org.uk/

QSL VIA TOM WYLIE GM4FDM QTHR , THIS IS THE ONLY ROUTE .

73 es GL

Paul G6PZ