Thanks to all that could get to the club night at the start of the bank holiday on 26th August at Fillongley Village Hall. We had a great social evening in good company. The weather was excellent, so formalities were abandoned and radios and antennas were set up on the patio, where everyone had the opportunity of trying these out on the club’s callsign, M0NDA. Matt (G5MAT) brought his Icom 705 and worked FT8 through the evening using an impressive MFJ Magnetic Loop antenna. By the end of the evening the setup was heard in over 200 locations in South America, East and West Coast US, Canada and across Scandinavia, Middle East and Eastern Europe. Impressive for 10 Watts!
Al (M0SLO) brought his Yaesu 859D together with an 80m UK Antennas End Fed Half Wave, making good use of the field. Apart from an expensive carp pole failure (learning point: stretching a 40m wire puts a lot of load on an upright!) we eventually got the antenna operational. Matt’s much shorter PAR EFHW worked just as well and we QSO’d with Steve, PJ4DX, on the Dutch island of Bonaire, roughly 100km from Venezuela in the Caribbean. Thanks to John (G4IWA) for arranging the contact and operating.
There were plenty of Italian and European stations active, and Andrew (2E0HUY) raised Russ, VE9FI, in New Brunswick, Canada, who was operating a 6 element monoband beam. John E. and David (G8OMB) took part in proceedings also. Tea coffee, cake and Jaffa biscuits improved the SWR through the evening. Carl, G0NZI, also visited with his ICOM 202 and successful contest portable 2m setup.
Equipment used and bands worked: Yaesu 857D with UK Antennas 80m EFHW and PAR EFHW operating on 20m, Icom 705 with MFJ Magnetic Loop antenna – various HF bands, mainly 20m, Kenwood TS 790A with lightweight 8 ele homebrew quagi on tripod – 70cm FM, Icom IC202 with lightweight 2m 3 ele yagi on 6m silver stick mast – 2m SSB. Looking forward to our next club night on the 16th September, where, together with othwer activities, Brian (G3YTT) will expose the secret life of electricity!