The Spring VHF/UHF Field day ran over the 23/24 November weekend. Although this is a 24 hour contest, traditionally we have entered into the 8 hour section either on the Saturday from midday or on the Sunday from early morning. This year MWRS ran on the Saturday afternoon covering 6m/2m/70cm/23cm.
For the last couple of years we have located the contest station on the sports field above the club. However after the skate board ramp was built we had to move the location of the station on the sports field and it no longer seems to be a good option. In previous years we have also tried the fields by the BMX track/pony club near the old club house and so we decided to go back to this location again for this year. This does give us some additional logistical issues as instead of being able to just walk the antennas up to the sports field, we had to transport them which involved the partial dismantle of the 2m/70cm antenna.
We started at the club house around 10am Saturday morning to collect equipment which gave us plenty of time to set up a station. We put up two masts, one for 6m and the second for the 2m/70cm yagi and the 23cm yagi. For this year we used the clubs IC-7300 for 6m and IC-9700 for 2m/70cm and 23cm back up by an IC-7000 for 2m/70cm. Power came from batteries with solar panels to keep them topped up. The IC-9700 meant that we can run more power on 2m/70cm/23cm than we have in previous years.
We’ll keep you posted with the results!
It was a pleasant day, good company and some excellent contacts to New Zealand on 6m, 2m and 70cm. 23cm didn’t quite make it.
The rain also stayed away until we were almost packed up.