The White Cliffs Net

Sunday Morning at 9:55am
Freq: 3.745 (+/-)
The Club Net is now held daily starting at 10am on 80m, then QSY to 1.845 at approx 10:10am
Please feel free to join in!

Dover Amateur Radio Club

G3YMD

Contests

Declan M0TMX and Nigel M0NDE during the latest 2m Contest

Tony 2E0VYW

Tony 2E0VYW in the DARC Contest Shack

Ben M0TUX and Declan M0TMX

Ben M0TUX on the Mic, Declan M0TMX Logging on the first DARC Contest!

As many of you know we have been discussing the prospect of getting a Contest Group going within the club, and following last Wednesday nights discussion at the club we have finally fixed on dates for two contests, where we are going to "get our feet wet.

The first contest is one of the regular Tuesday Evening 2m contests, see this link http://www.vhfcc.org/ and click on the "Calendar" to access the 144MHz UK Activity and Club Championship details. You will need to click the link on the top of the page to access the rules that apply to the contest. We have selected this contest for a number of reasons.

  1. Its a short duration, 1900 - 2130
  2. Equipment is relatively straightforward
  3. Gives us a good opportunity to learn from all the inevitable mistakes we will make
  4. We can operate multiple operators under the club callsign, G3YMD
  5. Gives us the opportunity to "play" with different logging programmes to see what best suits
  6. We will also keep a manual log in case we mess up, and we are highly likely to, but we're learning all the time

The second Contest is a 24 hour contest, details available at the same link above, look for the date of 16th-17th May. It is not anticipated that we will run a full 24 hours, but there is a category where you can enter for one or more 6 hour slots. We are still discussing what we will do, and to some extent it will depend on the availability of operators, so if you are interested please let me know, all club members are welcome to participate in ANY capacity you can.

We do have a bit of a learning curve with this activity and logging is one of the challenges. Some suggest using Ham Radio Deluxe http://www.ham-radio-deluxe.com/ and although I've used it a bit myself in the past I'm not sure I personally am familiar enough with it to use it in a "Contest" environment. Another popular programme with the RSGB contest is SD by EI5DI http://www.ei5di.com/ . I like this one too, its basic but works out your scores as it goes along, it has all the basic rules for the RSGB contest already entered so that as you log you can track Dupes and Multipliers etc. I'm not sure HRD is capable of doing that. Links attached for anyone who wants to have a play with them, and I'm interested in any general feedback. Both are free to download. We may even run a couple of different ones and a back up manual log for the first few efforts until we settle of something more permanent for club contest events.

So, we have selected the contests we are going to have our first attempt at, but we are still fine tuning some of the details. And perhaps those of you that are interested will let me know, so I can start planning resources for both events.

Ian, G3ROO has been kind enough to allow us to use his Shack (not his main shack) at his QTH for these event and we will enjoy the benefit of a 40ft Tower which has a rotator and a 2m beam already mounted on top of it. Ian is already located in a very high location anyway, so this should give us a fine start to our efforts. Thanks to Ian for the offer, and also to Nigel, M0NDE, both of whom have been busy sorting the shack out for us. This is not Ian's "main" shack so it has required a bit of spring cleaning and both Ian and Nigel have been busy yesterday sorting it out in preparation for the contest. Also worth noting that we have also had the offer of a site near Canterbury, but as I haven't spoken to the person involved recently I'm not sure if its still available for our use or not. I can confirm the position with this another time, if its still available this might suit for other contests later on.

So, I would encourage anyone interested in taking part or helping out to let me know, we will need people to help with logging, operating, anyone interested in propagation might like to have a look at the likely propagation forecast conditions for the dates mentioned above. This might also be a good opportunity for those of you not interested in contesting to just come along for a bit of a social get together. In any event a chance to learn new skills, operate some radio, see if we can score a few points and socialise with club members and others.

So, as plans develop, I'll keep you posted on the group here. But lets see club members get involved and "do some radio". Any comments or further discussion welcome on the group board here.

Regards,

Declan
M0TMX

Home | Contact Us
© Copyright 2004-2010 Primary Technologies