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IARU HF Championship 2005
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9-10th July 2005, near Dunmow, Essex.
In 2005 I joined Chris G3SVL and Dave G3UEG at the 160m SSB station of GB5HQ.
Also during the contest Andy G4KNO operated from home using his own, and the club callsigns M0CAM and M4R. He managed to work GB5HQ on 7 of the 12 possible band-mode slots.
We worked 408 stations on 160m SSB. Antennas were an Inverted-V with centre at 75 ft, ends at 30ft fed by open wire feeder and a K9AY loop. For spotting we used a C3SS at 25ft and the Spotting Receiver Remote Filter.
The radios were a FT1000MP with ACOM 2000 amp and Linear Amp balanced tuner. The spotting receiver was an FT1000 MkV.
For logging we used two laptops connected to StarLog server via ISDN. The screen layouts were optimised for 'Run' and 'Spot'. We also used, to great effect, an audio switching box built by Dave, G3UEG. This allowed the spot operator to listen to RUN, RUN sub or Spot rx audio and to have them as mono or as a different source in each ear. This was used to have two pairs of ears on the frequency to help copy the weaker calling stations from the noise.
More details are available on the official website at http://www.gb5hq.com
Here are some of Chris's soapbox comments.
Highlights: Teamwork - not just the three of us but the whole set-up, you felt like they were all in the shack with you. Exceeding last year's 160m SSB total (single op from SVL home QTH) by 27% - indeed just met last year's Platinum target. Cooperation with Jan, G0IVZ (160m CW station) Passing of 'needed' and 'mults' worked really well (as G0TSM noted on the contest reflector!) All systems worked faultlessly - including the link to the StarLog server. StarLog (once we were a few hours in). Pop-ups for Talk and Announce were brilliant and the ability to customise the display for each operator saves all that discussion, moaning and compromise! Still suspect we only scratched the surface of its facilities. John G3WGV's virtual presence throughout the contest was reassuring. Banter on the Announce messages - helped us realise that our problem with midges and moths was nothing compared to those North of the Border! LowLights: So many weak and watery signals during daylight hours - we really tried but as a number have already noted it is very much a case of geography and differential systems (Dave took down his 108ft vertical and put up an inverted V to be more suitable for inter-G working - so the problem was probably choice of rx antennas, site noise, propagation or a combination of all three). Interestingly we could work Jan (160CW) at any time in daylight - a 240mile path.Click on a thumbnail below to see a larger picture.
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Dave G3UEG |
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Chris G3SVL & Dave G3UEG, old friends, building the score |
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Mark G4AXX on the Run station |
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The Inverted-V fed with open wire feeder |
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The C3SS at 25ft |
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The K9AY receiving loop |
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The spotting rx vertical |
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Chris tidying up |
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Dave preparing to lower the 75ft mast |