CARC & RATS Team win VHF National Field Day 2009

Final results and scores for VHF National Field Day 2009 were as follows:

6m – 5th
4m – 6th
2m – 3rd
70cms – 2nd
23cms – 1st
Overall – WE WON!!!!

So, in 1st place that indomitable team of Crawley ARC and Reigate ATS - with 3,538 points, and leaping from 4th place last year - were the outright winners of VHF Field day 2009. They are congratulated and receive the Surrey Trophy.

In Runner–up slot were Windmill CG, for the third year running, with 3,423 points, whilst in third place with 3,057 points was Cockenzie & Port Seton ARC. They retain the Tartan Trophy as highest-placed Scottish station for the third year running. Undoubtedly, feeling a little disappointed at 4th place lies Colchester RA with 2,849 points – having occupied the winner's position for the previous 5 years.

70cms (Report by Tim Trew, G8JXV)

Sometimes, you can have too much of a good thing. Most RATS members are of an age to remember Flanders and Swann’s “Song of Reproduction”, containing the lines:

“And then they amplified it
It was much louder then
And used sharpened fibre needles
To make it soft again.”

Did we get that angle right?
And so it has been with antennas on 70 cm, where we have struggled to get the ultimate in gain, only to end up with a beam width that was far too narrow to hear anyone that wasn’t directly in our sights. We’ve countered this in the distant past with a second 48el for hunting, even though the extra weight put us at the limit of what can be put at the top of a 40’ scaffold pole. After switching to towers, we were able to stack 4 antennas, given a rather broader beamwidth than the box of 4 and have never quite summoned the enthusiasm to add a separate beam, given that it would re-introduce much of the complexity that we’ve just got rid of. This year the main innovation was to have one antenna rotated with respect to the rest, pointing up the UK when the remaining three 28 els were beaming to DL … and it seems to have worked!

The most challenging part of the exercise was working out how to set the aerials up when the mast is horizontal and the main antennas are beaming West’ish. A CARC member was making a video of the event and apparently one of the highlights is where Stewart, G3YSX, was performing callisthenics, using his arms to represent beams at 110°, while working out this transformation! Our main concern was that, by the time the mast was high enough off the ground to be able to put the beams at this angle, it would not longer be possible to reach the clamp. It turned out, that, by standing on a chair on tiptoes, we could just make it!

There’s not much to say about the rest of the set–up since, apart from some unfounded concerns about the wire cables that lift the mast sections being mis-threaded, everything went together smoothly (regular readers of these reports will realise that this is real novelty, and didn’t apply to all the stations this year!). We had the same set–up as last year, with an IC910 and a Henry linear, and a preamp, together with Peter’s, GÆVVE, homebrew sequencer. This was triggered from a PC-based voice recorder and a Heil mic and footswitch. So, we were on the air promptly at 15:00, albeit with only 350W – we decided to live with that, rather than miss QSOs (note to self for 2010 – we should find out why the power was low – the theory at the time was insufficient drive from the Heil headset – indeed we received reports that our recorded CQs were much stronger than the signal from the mic).


Peter set us the challenge (apart from winning the Open section) of working more than 3 French stations, which was our haul last year. This year, after I had spent a long time beaming south, with a completely clear sea path, we had 7 French QSOs, so we achieved our goal, but it’s rather low compared with the 40 German stations we worked over 100’s of km of land. This lack of French activity is very odd, since we could clearly see France. Maybe Syledis, which only used to affect the south coast of England, had a much greater impact in France and killed all 70 cm activity there.

Despite this, the system worked well overall, with 145 Qs, up a bit on last year. The best DX was OZ9EDR/P at 821 km, closely followed by OK2KKW at 818 km. An unusual QSO was OE9G, the first OE I recall on 70 cm. What’s more, the new aerial set–up worked, with GMs being worked while we had the 3 beams beaming east.




The average distance was down a bit on last year, at 307 points/QSO. You can see from the graph below that, even if the QSO rate was low in the middle of the night, this was compensated by the distances worked.






RATS Chairman Peter G0VVE continues ...
This year’s VHF NFD seems to have gone by in a blur but, finally, we achieved a really good score. The amount of effort in terms of equipment and personnel to mount an effective challenge for the Open Section is pretty demanding and the RATS would not get off the starting block with the support of our friends and colleagues at Crawley.

We went back to the Folkestone site, which while it lacks the vast array of kit available at Saxmundham, it does have the decided advantage of being easier to get to and there is a good pub a few minutes’ walk away. Last year we were unable to field more than three bands but this year we went the whole hog on five bands. We certainly could not have done so without the sterling work on 23 cm of Derek, G3GRO; Mike G0KAD and some slick operating from Gerry Lynch, GI0RTN.

Everything appeared to go pretty well on the Friday afternoon and evening. The small mast with the large extension for 6m and 4m was soon readied though at one point we had to drive off an inquisitive herd of young highland cattle to stop them trampling the aerials which were still on the ground. Andy, G7FWE had been set to get involved but a late invitation to a wedding postponed his arrival until Saturday morning.

We used two new 6 element antennas on 6m which had direct 50 ohm feeds. This cut out all the hassle of trying to sort out gamma matches and we had already made up a phasing harness from 75 ohm coax. On 23 cm the Scam mast was erected and the 4 x 22 element M2 aerials were assembled.

Then the rigging team thought it was time for supper! I had booked in to the Britannia Hotel in Folkestone Harbour, which looked extremely grand from the outside. Inside it was somewhat different but at £20 per person a night for B & B I wasn’t going to complain except that the car park was full with lots of notices threatening clamping in prominent view, However, Rob, Mike and I had a congenial curry and we were set for the morning.

Saturday’s weather was indeed kind to us and on 2m the main antenna and tent were up and the beacons were pounding in so time to get the other systems working! 23 cm was all set but the whole aerial system needed to be attached to the mast. This required a somewhat delicate balancing act atop the ladder but it was done.

4 and 6 aerials went together all ok and when Tim and Stewart arrived together with the RATS caravan 70 took shape fairly quickly. Eugene had organised the generator for 70 and how he got it into his car had to be seen to be believed. There can’t have been more than an inch or two of clearance – never mind the weight!

By this time Andy had turned up and the 6m tent made its reappearance. Last job was to finish 2m. The second antenna system, 2 x 9 ele on scaffold poles was straight forward so all we had to do was to raise the main mast and that was it!

The 100 ft tower had had a new winch fitted when it was in use commercially so we had no worries on that score but it was as dead as a dodo when powered up! To cut a long and extremely frustrating story short the winch had to be dismantled to reconnect the brushes internally. The wires were just pinch fits to the terminal studs and these had become disconnected when the leads were being attached externally. Can manufacturing get more cheapskate than that!

In the end we were up and running no more than 10 minutes before the off and somehow there seemed to be someone to man all the stations. Our problems, however, were just beginning. On 6 Andy’s IC7400 failed shortly after the start and the FT847 had to be brought into play. This entailed re-configuring the RigBlaster for the CQ caller and wasted quite a bit of time. This had been the plan for 4m but what no one had realised was how insensitive Bird 43 elements are when used for 4m but when designed for UHF. This caused a bit of a flutter on Sunday morning!

On 2 after about 4 hours of operating power dropped to about 25W out. Swapping the IC940 over to the spare made no difference and the pa was operating normally. There wasn’t a good word for Icom to be heard anywhere. I was all set to make a three hour return journey to collect a TS2000 when Mike had the bright idea of changing the output lead. Hey ho!! I never did discover whether it went short circuit or open circuit as I found it cut in half when I unpacked the kit after the contest.

Operating wise it was a busy couple of hours to start but at about 4.30 pm I was called by CT1HZE. 59 both ways – 1700 kms away. Previous experience of Es from that site – to Romania – had been that they were intense but short lived. Had the call been from any other station but the best known 2m set up in Portugal I might have reacted differently. I did beam the smaller pair of aerials to EA/CT but the only other sniff of a contact that way was someone else working an EA8 which I couldn’t hear.

It was not till later that I discovered this was one of the biggest Es opening on 2m this summer and that stations in Ireland, Scotland and the West country enjoyed an opening which lasted over 2 hrs. (Memo – must get a portable DX cluster connection). Dave Edwards, G7RAU, whose web site is invaluable, kindly sent me a read out of the Es reported on the cluster over that period and there were one or two to PA from CT but hardly any from our tip of SE England.

A case of what might have been! Although we carried on and in the end will have scored more points than we did last year, albeit from a few less QSOs, there are no doubt some huge scores somewhere which have not so far appeared on the VHFCC claimed scores page and we will be some way down the list.

Operating was further handicapped by the RS232 port on my laptop failing which put the CQ caller out of action for more than half the contest and an attack by animals unknown in the night which covered my arms and elsewhere in bites which necessitated a visit to the pharmacist on Sunday morning – but that’s another story. On the upside however we had a very good run to France early on Sunday morning and worked several OKs and an OE.

Oh and by the way, has anyone seen the old RATS generator and my small tool box with all the spanners in? I can’t believe we left them in the field but I can’t find either of them.

Many, many thanks to all those who helped make this one of our most successful field days yet.

John, G3VLH concludes

So there we have it – another superb piece of inter-club cooperation between CARC and RATS, and the best so far! Our thanks to Peter G0VVE and to Tim G8JXV for their original write-ups, which I hope I haven’t mauled about too much in re-arranging for the CARC Blog.

Thanks to John, G3YLH for compiling is report on this very successful event - Stewart/G3YSX