March 144MHz/432MHz
(Brass Monkey's Contest)
On the 6th and 7th March the Middlesex DX Group decided to try the RSGB March contest.
The group arranged to meet at the QTH of G0KLX John's and we left West London Friday mid morning with group members G0KLX John, G7AFC Mark, M1PRO Jason, 2W0VAG Simon and collected G1KAW Kevin on the way to site.
We arrived at the site JO00EW after a two hour journey and we started putting the stations together
we just had to await the 2E1IDC Carl who was working late but bring the important Clark mast for 70Cms.
After a few hours of setting and testing the station's and listening to beacon's we decided to call it a day and enjoy the rest of the evening with the tradition of our local take away and some cold beers.
The Friday night was very cold and most of the group members were found huddled round the gas heater at 3am "Lucky that 2E1IDC brought the heater with him".
EQUIPMENT
144MHz - Yaesu FT-736R, Homebrew 400w Linear, MFJ contest keyer and 2 X 17 Element Tonna's @ 25Ft.
432MHz - Yaesu FT-897D, Dressler 400w Linear, MFJ contest keyer and 2 X 21 Element Tonna's @ 25Ft
Logging software was SDV by EI5DI
After a sleepless night we were up and ready to go, the contest started at 2PM the activity at the beginning was very slow and we did wonder if we had the right day! or was alot of other contest group still frozen and couldnt operate.
10Hrs into the contest we had clocked into the hundreds on 144Mhz and 432Mhz was not looking so good but by this time alot of stations had turned in for the night so we decided to do the same.
The Sunday we had overslept due to another very cold night and kept waking up frozen and trying to warm up in the early hours of the morning. We got back on the radios by 6:30am again low activity but by 2PM the contest was over and we checked our log's to had worked 240 stations on 144MHz and only 67 stations on 432Mhz.
We started packing the stations away and were on our way home just before 4PM.
Another contest under our belt. Even though it was cold the weather was good to us during the day and it was very enjoyable.
"This turned out to be the most coldest contest we had ever done"