National Field Day 2017
SADARS report for NFD 17.
This year NFD was on the 3/4 th of July and we operated from
16.00 to 0100.
We all arrived on site to erect the antenna and station at 1300,
that was me Ron G4DDX, Tom G4BYE, Fred G0MDR, and Phil G4GNK who
were the operators. Also Keith G4KGP, Roger M6RIZ, Marti G0NJS
with his tent and I think one other member. Keith and Antonio
turned up around 0100 to give a hand dismantling and we
also had visits from M0RLO and G0WAT during the evening.
The wx was fine and sunny and we installed the antenna, a dipole
for 80 and 40 on the same co-ax which I use for LPFD but with
new clip on extensions for 160m and this worked well.
The tent was a wigwam and was installed easily and we used the club 756 pro2 which did not require an atu to tune the antenna. Also we used my computer for logging and we had problems to read it in the bright sun partially solved by making the characters white on a black background. Also a screen on the outside of the tent to block the sun helped most.
Power came from my invertor generator which performed perfectly.
Murphy visited as usual when we ran out of power for the
computer losing one contact. This was because the PSU plug was
pushed too far into the mains adaptor so that the contacts were
not making, a point to watch in future.
We all operated for either half hourly or hourly and till we
closed down at 01.00 and dismantled the station. It was very
chilly and all went well. 40m was the best band followed by 160m
and then 80m with almost nothing on 20m and 10m and 15m had
nothing.
Due to poor conditions we operated assisted at 25w instead of
qrp and because we could not meet the conditions for the antenna
requirements for other sections due to the possibility of
caravans on site. This did not happen.
We made 228 q’s with 58,688 points which was up on last year but
of course we only operated for 9 hours out of the 24 hours so I
doubt we will come too far up the list but we all enjoyed the
contest which is what matters.
The RSGB entered us into the DARC contest.
73
Ron G4DDX and Team.
