For this years IARU ATV contest I decided to get a bit more active than last years 2 QSOS and go portable at three locations :-
Saturday.
Left home at 0800 and drove the 84 miles from home to
Walbury hill IO91GI (thanks to Noel for the opportunity to use the site while he went elsewhere) Having never been there before it was a bit tricky to find, but the photos from google maps Noel supplied helped.
Having 7 TV bands plus 2m FM talkback setting up the equipment took a long time, At the start of the contest worked G8GKQ/P on all
bands 432 to 24GHz at 54km.
Worked G8LES at 40km on 23 and 13cm and he received my
signal on 9cm (he has no transmit on that band)
Worked G8GTZ/P at 51km 432 to 24GHz except 13cm (equipment trouble his end).
Transmitted my signals successfully to G4LDR at 30km on 24GHz to 9cm during
some huge rain storms which forced a couple of hasty retreats into the car. Could lock to his carrier on all bands but got no further than Carrier
and FS lock. Did have a two way on 13cm
with him
Drove back home arriving at 2240
Sunday
Left house at 0700. Arrived at cleeve common car park IO81XW at
0800
As a new location the rules said I needed new contest numbers in the Portsdown 2020. No
problem I thought, I have previously saved a suitable new set to USB drive. Imported them
but subsequently not even the Portsdown touchscreen would respond. After much
searching found ethernet cable and did a factory reset via SSH. Manually set
all parameters. Lost 2 hours so no time for expedition to trig point for LOS
24GHz path. Worked G8GTZ/P at walbury at
76km on 13cm to (surprisingly) 10GHz, Just
not enough signal for 24GHz. Location
getting overrun with visitors so left at 1200
Drove the 29 miles to Notgrove, IO91BV, a site that
should have a good path to Walbury (and would not be crowded!!)
 |
| The Membury TV mast can be seen through the gap |
Decided to
change the contests numbers manually and avoid risk. Worked Noel at 67km 23cm
to 24GHz. Signals were not too loud on DATV but huge on 24GHZ NBFM.
Worked G0MJW with big signals both ways on
70cm and 23cms.
Saw signals from G4CPE on 70cm but couldn’t attract his
attention with my 5W Tried getting signals on 70cm to G3VKV but path too
blocked locally. Good signals on microwave bands from GB3ZME 3 and 5 GHz but
too late to work the M0YDH/P in that area. Did hear the GB3LPC beacon on 3.4GHz narrowband for the first time.
