This weekend sees activation of GB0SNB for the contest group’s Work the World Weekend.  A chance for members to operate outside of a contest and to experiment with equipment in a less intensive style field day.

The weekend started off in a very informal manor, with Chris G8OCV relaxing in the sunshine whilst waiting for other members to arrive.  At 8:30am, the WX was good and the sun warm!

 

The day progressed well, with Tony M0HQE and Chris G8OCV assembling the 3 element Yagi on 17 metres.

 

Attention then turned to erecting Dave M0TAZ‘s 2 element Quad.  Here, we see Tony M0HQE and Alan G3RJI in the foreground with Graham M0PAX and Dave M0TAZ in the background.

 

Taken just as the sun was setting, the two large antennas can be seen with the club caravan and members vehicles.  The black dot suspended above the caravan is part of the 40 metre dipole configured as an inverted-V.

 

Here you can see the 17 metre station, consisting of an Icom IC7700 with logging laptop, tea mugs, paddle and microphone all cosily settled inside the club tent.

 

Meanwhile, Dave M0TAZ operates with relative comfort inside the club caravan. He’s using a Kenwood TS590s on 40 metres with the dipole, managing the massive pileup.  He was alternating between 20 metres and 40 metres, SSB and data modes.

 

In total, we made just shy of 1000 QSOs during the weekend.  The total was 973.  Not bad going at all, and I think the RSGB Bureau will be busy!  The breakdown goes something like this:

Band	SSB	CW	RTTY	PSK	Totals
40 metres	120	0	0	0	120
20 metres	138	221	36	39	434
17 metres	72	347	0	0	419
Totals	430	468	36	39	973

It is worth noting here that all of the CW QSOs were made by Fred G3SVK!

During the weekend we managed to work 68 separate DXCC entities, 16 on 40 metres, 47 on on 20 metres, and 41 on 17 metres.

The weekend saw a few firsts for GB0SNB.  First QSO with Anguilla (VP2E), Bahrain (A9), India (VU2), China (BY), Mongolia (JT) and Puerto Rico (KP4) to name a few.