Another year of GHz fun awaits, happy 2022! I fancied somewhere different for the January UKAC SHF contest. The Pink Road layby IO91OQ29 seemed like a good bet, it always works well to the North. I was last there in October 2021 for a Sunday 5/10GHz contest and before that in the April 2021 SHF UKAC. Its not a site I can really use that much as its very close to Charles G0SKA who is active in the 6m to 23cm UKAC's which means its only usable for the Tuesday SHF evening.
As mentioned in previous blog posts, LG is not the easiest of locations for portable, an uneven sloping muddy layby with a farm gate festooned with barbed wire. It's not flat enough for the drive-on plate and there is no space to deploy guy ropes etc. With the rotator left at home I took two sets of poles and strapped them both to the farm gate. Luckily it was dry and not too windy, perfect for table top operating outside. It was rather chilly about +1C so the mountaineering jacket came in handy. I arrived onsite a bit late due to work and after set-up in the pitch black this meant that I missed the first hour.
Conditions were poor on 3cm. The GB3SEE Reigate beacon was quickly found which is helpful in checking the DB6NT G2's offset (12KHz). I am building a new DB6NT G3 based system which will be frequency locked. I expect that to be ready around Easter time. With my 1W system I managed 6 QSO's (G0LGS/P, G4HWA, G4ZTR, 2E0MDJ/P, G4CLA and Dave G4ASR in Hereford for my ODX (IO81MX, 153km). I failed with G8CUB, G4BXD and G3PHO and could not grab the attention of G4LDR, G4ODA, M0GHZ who were all busy.
13cm seemed to be in slightly better shape and my first QSO was just before 9pm with local Neil G4BRK. An intermittent PTT cable issue meant 13cm was soon unexpectedly sharing the bias tee and the IC-9700 radio with 3cm. This meant lots of subsequent coax swaps when changing bands! I finished with 18 QSO's, not too shabby a result for 0.8W QRP. My ODX was John G3SQQ near Mansfield (IO93JC, 161km). I even managed to get a few QSO's by calling CQ. I wish a few more would call CQ on that band.
Using the IC-9700 2m IF to power both 13cm and 3cm worked really well, next month I need to use a good quality 2-way N-type coax switch! The PTT Multiplier box from Roger at the DX-Shop did the job providing correct PTT signaling per band. This will come into its own when I'm next out on 9cm using the IC-9700 70cm IF. Three band SHF powered by the IC-9700 is the goal for 2022! I'll still bring the Yaesu FT-717ND as a back-up, just in case.
My Pluto-based 5.7GHz (6cm) system was a non-starter. After putting the dish up and deploying the LDF-450 I realised that I'd left a USB control cable at home for the USB relay, doh! So that sat there all night feeling sorry for itself. There is always a next time. Two bands kept me reasonably busy, and its still a car full of kit to load, set-up, pack away and then unload back at home!
Overall it wasn't too bad a start for my first Microwave outing of the year. It's put a few points in Northern Fells Contest Group's team pot. So pleased our team beat 807 and won UKAC in 2021. Individually over the 6 UKAC evenings I finished 2021 in 21st place out of 817, so in the top 3% of all entrants. Quite pleased with that!
The RSGB UKAC contests require a lot of effort to participate in during the working week. I managed to submit entries on 51 evenings out of a possible 71, so entering just over 70% of the contests. Not bad in a second Covid-19 disrupted year. Plus the weather was generally awful on Tuesdays and Thursdays which didn't help. Here's to a much better 12 months! Thanks for reading my blog and I hope it's inspired you to try GHz and portable. In return for some effort, playing Microwaves is a very rewarding part of our diverse hobby.