70MHz Trophy

Enthused about 4m from previous outings we decided to visit British (IO81KR) again. We were late starting by 30 minutes by eating cake and coffee before departing to the site!. There was mist/rain/drizzle for the whole contest. Again we used the K3S and the Anglian transverter to drive the I0JXX dualband amplifier. The antenna was the 5 ele Powabeam at 6m,

The only equipment issue was computer related. The K3S just has one USB connection to the computer (no audio leads). For the first 30 minutes on every speech peak the virtual serial port and the K3S soundcards would be removed from the computer and reappear on receive. After a while there was a warning that the device was disabled as it was unstable. Not having had this issue on previous 4m events I took a look at the USB lead. I had taken the first one from the bag; a thin black lead. Looking further I found a thicker lead with clear cover that showed a decent braid. Changing to that cable, the issue went away!
In a change to  normal, there were numerous stations QRV up north, in IO84 and 94. This activity allowed us to confirm that the site is good to the North, we dont normally work much up there as there is no activity! The loudest signal was from GM4ZUK/P in IO86. Although two stations were worked in GU, there was not even a hint of a GJ station or GD. Being called by GI4OPH in the last hour was a welcome surprise/ 98 QSOs were had with the best DX being PA4VHF in JO32 at 640km

70MHz Cumulative Contest

Having finally  finished integrating my I0JXX dual band 50/70MHz amplifier it needed trying out. The contest calendar showed a 2 hour 4m (2nd cumulative) contest so we decided to give it a try. Blorenge is no place to be on a Bank holiday Sunday so an alternative was needed. Roger suggested British Mountain which was a bit more remote. I had never been there so I went there via his house, so i could follow him. The route was challenging for both vehicles. As we neared the destination we noted a vertical antenna and a tent, which caused concern, Dropping by and introducing ourselves we found they were CBers so we should have no trouble to us on 70MHz. We moved 100m along the road and setup the station. The 5 element Powabeam was put on 25' of pole with guys. The rest of the station was the K3S (on its first outing) and my G4DDK Anglian Transverter. We also got to try the audio boxes I had made which allows the operator and logger to choose any combination of main and sub RX audio

When the antenna was connected the band was full of wideband signals. Sporadic-E was in progress, the band was occupied by FM broadcast stations from Eastern Europe. SQ8EP was worked before the contest, but during the contest, despite the broadcast SP-E signals there was no SP-E dx available, the best dx was PF7M. The Northern English squares were well represented but despite calling a lot that way there were no sign of GM stations. 71 QSOS were made in total.

Postcript:

A friend of a friend stumbled across a youtube video from visitors to the CB station wondering what was going on at the white van up the road from the cb station! The video is here  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ5Bs29CXGY   The marauding sheep timestamp the recording time