May 144MHz Contest
6 Hour open section
Claimed scores for this contest are:
78 QSO's, 21,110 points, 46 mults = 971,060 points, Best DX 802km
Actual adjudicated score:
74 QSO's, 20,251 points, 45 mults = 911,295 points - 2nd place
Equpiment:
Yaesu FT-920, MuTek Transverter, 2x 4CX250B (400W) Masthead Preamp, 2x
10ele DL6WU yagis (only 1 yagi after mast collapsed)
TacLog used for logging.
3.5KVA generator.
Soapbox by Bob G0KYS:
We arrived on site to find the wind not too bad, and no rain. The wind
was SW, so Okement Hill was partially sheltered by Yes Tor. The
forecast was for the wind to increase to strong by morning, and switch
to the South. But you never know until it happens, do you?
The rig went pretty smoothly. We had a bit of rain, but mainly just
because we were in the cloud. Garth was dispatched down to
Okehampton for the chips around 8.30pm, leaving me to sort out the
shack. The chips were washed down with a beer, and we then set up
all Richards gear.
At around this time I realised I had forgotten something important - my
laptop! Julie (Bob's wife) volunteered to bring
this up to Okehampton on Sunday,
so we made arrangements to start logging on paper, and for Garth to go
and meet her by the camp in the morning.
We put the tent up in the dark using the halogen lamp, as per MCG
tradition. With everything fully working, we retired for the night.
I woke at around 4.30am, with the sound of the vent flap on the top of
the tent flapping madly, and the back of the tent wall blowing against my
head. The forecast was coming true, with the wind switching direction.
By the time it got to 7am, heavy rain had set in as well. We got up and
had a harty breakfast of bacon rolls (cooked in the tent) and were on air
at 9am.
The mast seemed to the be coping fine, with all the guys looking good.
The pole on top was bending a bit, but nothing it couldn't handle. The
first hour went fine, although all stations were commenting on how poor
the conditions were, and how quiet it was, so progress was fairly slow.
The wind noticeably increased during this time, and I could see the tent
contorting into different shapes. Trying to put the tent down in
conditions like this was not really an option!
Nearly an hour into the contest, we noticed that the receiver was deaf,
and yes, we had blown the pre-amp again! We removed the power
from the pre-amp, and this seemed to bypass it. We worked around 20
in the first hour. I was in the process of working another station, when
Garth looked over his shoulder towards the mast. A scene of
devastation greeted him, as the mast had come down. As the wind had
changed direction by 90 degrees, this meant that the joiner half way up
the mast now had the weak pointing towards the wind. The sheer
strength of the wind had proved too much for the joiner, and the mast
above this point had just bent over, sending the antennas crashing to
the ground.
Garth was first to look on the bright side, and said that we could
probably hook up a low level single yagi made from the remnants of the
two. Garth then set off to meet Julie to get the laptop, and I set to work
in the torrential rain assembling the new 'array'.
The top antenna was completely destroyed. Every element was
broken, and the dipole was bent badly, with the feeder box cracked.
Even the boom was bent! The lower one had faired much better. The
very end of the boom had broken off, but the rest was OK. All the other
elements except the reflector were bent, but straightenable. I set to
work manufacturing another reflector from the spare rod I always take
(although this is the first time I've had to use it!).
After over an hour we had the antenna up on the single scaffold pole,
and we were QRV again. Before starting I spent a further 20 minutes
typing up the paper QSOs, so we could start in ernest electronically.
I started operating again, while Garth nobelly went out into the storm
and cleared up the rest of the wreckage. Shortly after this I noticed
that one of the tent poles, now fractured, was sticking up from the tent!
It turned out that both the poles had given up the fight with the wind.
Looks like I'll be buying Robert a new tent!
The rest of the contest went pretty uneventfully, and we left site having
made the best of the situation, but a little damp and weary!
MCG now has an enviable record. We have never had a mast or a
pre-amp survive a contest.
You never know. It might be sunny in August.
Bob G0KYS
May Contest Gallery (click on images for hi-res)
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