Monthly Archives: July 2018

Suffolk RED Field Day

Members of the SNBCG ventured out of Essex into Suffolk on the weekend of the 14-15 July 2018 to take part in a weekend of radio with Suffolk RED. The forecast was set fair with temperatures up to 30C, and with the offer to camp overnight on site.

George M1GEO, Chris G8OCV and Dave M0TAZ setup a VHF and HF station for some radio fun.

The VHF station comprised of a 9e LFA beam, LMR-400 coax and a DG8 masthead preamp. The Icom 7100 provided multimode support on 144 MHz, with the focus for the weekend on FT8. We managed to work  50 stations from 20 Maidenhead locators all over Europe, using a sold state 300w amplifier from Linear Amp UK.

Some highlights from the VHF log included.
DL3GAK at 662KM
F4CYH at 673 KM
OZ1BEF at 693 KM
OZ1BP at 698 KM
You can see a map of the stations worked below.

Power was provided by our 2kW Honda generator.

On Saturday we enjoyed an evening BBQ, and a chance to catch up with other members of the club.

Conditions on HF were not so good. Using an IC7610 and an Expert 1.3k-FA linear operating as M1GEO, only European contacts were made. We operated through the night.The 90 QSOs from the HF operation were loosely broken as follows:

  • SSB: 41 QSOs
  • CW: 35 QSOs
  • FT8: 14 QSOs

The packing down process took some time in the scorching heat. You can see the grass (or lack thereof) was also suffering.

VHF NFD

VHF NFD is a great time to experiment with new equipment. At GB0SNB over the years we have had great success experimenting with EME and Meteor scatter on VHF, and on this occasion, we wanted to try out Richard 500w 144 MHz Linear Amplifier.

We used the 9e LFA, masthead preamp and LMR 400 coax, mounted on the 10m pump up mast. The Icom 7100 provided the all mode VHF radio.

We could only operate for around 4 hrs, but that was enough to work 70 stations in 10 countries.

Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Isle of Man, France, Germany, Belgium and Netherlands.

Our best DX was GM4PPT at 522 KM.

Altogether a very enjoyable afternoon in the sun