Field Day Station View

Then returned back during Saturday while Dad (M3JFM) and myself were out cycling enjoying the Oxfordshire/Edge of Buckinghamshire country side, most of the station was finally setup when we arrived although the generator died just as we arrived on site 2 hours before the contest started thankfully we managed to get one hour before the start, returning home later that evening via a pub stop to refuel for the 10miles cycle home.

Friday team busy at work!

During the weekend I also managed with the help of MixW to work 38 field day stations mixed across 80/40/20/15/10m which I was more then happy with, hopefully next year will be just as good!

You can find the rest of the photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/m3php/sets/72157624080291655/

Janet (2E0LLM), Ray (G4FON), Brian (G2KQ)

Last meeting at the Oxford radio club was the annual construction competition, where members can bring something along with the chance to actually in a cup to put in their shack for the year, the turn out with items seemed a bit low with only 5 items but never mind!

Items included

• Softrock TX/RX
• Digital SWR Meter
• Digital Modes Interface
• GHz Amp
• Some type of SDR interface for K3s

After all the votes were in the final winner was the Softrock transmitter, which I have to say looked rather neatly done, I wouldnt mind one myself but looks far to fiddley to make!

The station was setup Friday afternoon between the odd heavy rain shower which only lasted a couple of minutes at best, so we managed to get the tents and the beam up ready to finish off Saturday morning when we all congregated to finish off setting up the station which was a Yaesu FT-2000, Quadra, and dunstar filters to make spotting using a AOR receiver possible. The antennas were A4S, dipoles for 40/80m and a vertical for the spotting station.

Conditions did seem rather poor for obvious reasons, but when I had my turns I managed to get some decent runs on 20m Saturday afternoon and also on 40/80m during late evening, it did get hard during the early hours of the morning on 80/40m only picking up the odd contact and running seemed a constant task of hitting F1 on the keyboard.

The best part was probably the last 20mins when there was a brilliant opening towards JA which gave us some much needed mults! Overall had a fantastic weekend although I was pleased to get home Sunday for a good nights sleep!

• How we started HamTests.
• The first version of the system.
• The current website and its features.
• The Kenwood Trophy which we got awarded
• The future

All this I managed to squeeze into just under 25mins of actual talk and along the way stopped along the way to answer questions people had making it more of “friendly” and I think it came across well and the members seemed to be impressed with the website!

The next time a HamTests talk will be done is next year by M0TZO at one of his local clubs.

Setup began on Friday afternoon once all antennas, tents etc were on site, and luckily the tower is stored on the farm where we normally operate from!

The first thing to go up was the Crushcraft A4S which had been given a good clean a week or two before the weekend, so it was all nice and shiny and hopefully would perform a lot better also setup was 40-80-160m dipoles.

While another team worked on putting up the two tents one for operating and the other used as a cook tent.

On Saturday Dad (M3JFM) and I decided to cycle up to the site which was 22miles round trip with each leg taking about 1 hour 10mins according to the small computer on my bike.

Arriving on site around 11am the equipment was being put into the operating tent this year it was G4FON’s Yaesu FT2000D and G3KLH’s ICOM IC737 and 2 laptops running some custom software made by G4FON.

While this was being setup the receiving antennas where erected K9AY loop (built by M0DDT) and an 80m dipole after this there was plenty of time for drinking tea and having a good old chinwag.