What will really stick in people’s minds about VHF NFD 2004 was the appalling weather – particularly on the Saturday and during set-up time on the Friday. The Newbury Club, G5XV/P suffered so much from the wind that the tent collapsed and they had to operate from cars for the first 3 hours. The Stevenage & DARS, G3SAD/P damaged their mast and antenna for 23cm with the high winds and had to retract the antennas on the other bands. Static rain meant that the Cockenzie & District ARC were effectively two hours late starting on 2m and 6m since they couldn’t hear anything over the S9 noise level and a number of other groups complained of static rain as well – the Warrington team said it was the worst that they had ever known. The De Montfort University RS suffered a major disaster as their toilet blew away in the middle of the night – but - just to prove that a small hiccup like this can’t set a top team off its course – they did still go on to win the Restricted Section. The one up point of the miserable weather was that at least it was a help for those groups like GM3TAL/G3SHK who used wind power for battery charging!
In spite of the poor weather, overall entries are only fractionally down on last year, and a good number of groups who registered didn’t show up on the day – presumably the weather had some impact on that! There’s a continuing move of entrants out of the Open Section, into the more club friendly sections which require less hardware. This year, growth in the tactical Mix & Match section was particularly strong. This section allows groups to be in different sections on different bands according to the level of hardware that they have available on that band.
This year, for the first time, groups did not have to pre-register to take part and be tabulated in the results – pre-registration was only necessary in order to be eligible for awards, and this added a little flexibility for some last minute planners!
The poor weather meant that tropo conditions were poor on all bands and when combined with the fact that sporadic-E propagation was very poor on 6m, and non-existent on 4m & certainly 2m - groups away from the larger population centres had a particularly hard time this year. One non entrant - The Lerwick Radio Club from Shetland, deserves a mention this year. They made a valiant attempt get on for VHF NFD this year, but with such poor conditions they were really just too far north to be able to make any sort of impression on the bands without very large hardware.
The lack of traditional European sporadic-E this year on 6m, meant that groups made the majority of their QSOs on tropo. However, for those staying alert and in the right places, there was a little excellent DX around, with 5T5SN in Mauritania forming the best DX for a number of stations, and three groups, one in Cornwall, one in Devon and one in Southern Scotland, catching an opening to the East Coast of the USA.
The physically larger antennas often used on 6m meant that the weather probably played more havoc here than anywhere else. The Clifton ARS, G5YC/P, left out a critical supporting brace in their big 7 element yagi which gave it a 20 degree downtilt, but by the time that the operators thought about fixing it, the wind was blowing far too hard for anyone to fancy taking the mast down! The Reigate & Crawley clubs had big plans for the band to use 4 antennas, but the weather forced them back to just the one yagi and on the indoor front, Open Section winners, the Colchester Contest Group, G0VHF/P, lost their commercial 6m PA in a puff of smoke after two hours and had to run the rest of the contest on 100W.
Thankfully, sporadic-E propagation is really the icing on the cake or a mixed blessing when it occurs on 4m, since it often brings with it lots of Eastern European broadcast station QRM, so its absence this year was not as notable as on 6m. Once again, our stalwart entrant from the far North, Clive O’Hennessy, GM4VVX was operational, this time with a single band 4m entry, but only managed to drag 5 QSOs out of the mire with his 10W. However, he did hear another 5 stations who couldn’t be raised. In spite of losing the first hour of the contest due to a reverse polarity problem with the transverter, the Lothians RS, GM3HAM/P went on to win the band in the Open Section. Nick Garbett, M1DDD’s one-man band entry deserves some special mention, gaining runner-up position in the low power section on 4m.
The poor conditions meant that even 2m was a bit of a slog this year with some of the best DX being worked down to the South of France, but almost nothing over 1000km. MM0CPS/P had a very hard time on 2m and couldn’t figure out where an intermittent high SWR problem was coming from until the end of the contest when they found that the power splitter had come apart internally.
Clifton ARS, M0BPQ/P had a trying time during setup, breaking a raising rope on their 30m tower and an antenna in the process as the tower collapsed from 25m to 6m in about two seconds – a scary moment! Thankfully no one was hurt, but they did have to run the contest with a small low yagi! In spite of this they still worked OL8R at 888km as their best DX. They weren’t the only group to suffer this problem this year, so it’s well worth checking out the status of the ropes on your tower before the contest!
The Bristol CG also had both of their 2m antennas up and down more often than they cared to remember to fix bad lengths of heliax and broken baluns. However – as they said – at least the linear kept on going!
The poor conditions inevitably make 70cm rather slow going in places away from the bulk of the activity and a number of groups questioned whether the band was really worth the effort. However – for at least one of those teams, 70cm actually ended up contributing more to their score than any other band. Another group predicted that 70cm may be a little quiet, so they made sure that station was located in the food tent so that at least the operators would be kept well fueled!
Cambridge & DARC, M1TKA/P took the effective measure of putting both the power and pre amplifiers for 432 MHz at the top of the mast. Unfortunately – the power supply to them failed and it took some time for them to notice! The South Birmingham Club, G8OHM/P lost a rotator just before the start of the contest, and a pre-amp on Sunday morning.
Computers also got affected by the bad weather – or perhaps it was just the effects of a portable contest! The Kentish Hills CG suffered when the wet weather got a little too close to one of the computers causing a number of crashes followed by the expiration of a monitor and both the Chesham & Maidenhead & the Cambridge teams suffered hard disk crashes on one band or another losing over half their QSOs on those slots. It may be old technology, but it’s well worth setting your logging package to periodically save the log to a floppy disk!
Activity on 1296 MHz has inevitably suffered since we introduced various options for teams not to operate on the band. This year however – in spite of the poor conditions, the number of stations entering here actually rose slightly. Perhaps this was due to the fact that a number of stations in the Open section took advantage of a new rule allowing them to take all 5 bands out of they wanted to and to have the best 4 to count to their overall score. G0VHF/P put in a great score on the band, netting over 100 QSOs, with best DX into Berlin. Not many equipment problems were reported, although Warrington CG lost the valve in their PA part way through the contest once again and had to complete the contest barefoot on 8W. Nevertheless, they still won the band in the Low Power section.
A number of groups commented that what they find hard about NFD is getting enough antenna hardware, tents, generator power and people together to operate all band simultaneously. Should we think about a section where groups have the option to operate bands one by one rather than concurrently? Your comments on this would be welcome. However, it’s also worth pointing out however that the Low Power section, which is already slimmed down to 16 hours and 3 bands, has once again been won by a team consisting of only two operators. A non-concurrent section would clearly also attract single operators and this year Nick Garbett, M1DDD, put in a single operator entry to the low power section finishing in a respectable mid-table position using just a compromise log-periodic antenna for all bands. The arrival on the market of some small & very cheap generators (my local DIY store had 700VA models for £65 last week) is making portable contesting with moderate power even more practical than it used to be.
The winners in each of the sections were very clear this year. In the Open Section, the first and second placings from last year were reversed, with the Colchester Club winning out over the Windmill Contest Group and taking the Surrey Trophy. The Lothians RS, operating from South West Scotland, put in a great effort to only narrowly miss the runner-up slot from a site so far North, and once again take away the Tartan Trophy by way of consolation.
Just as last year, in the Restricted Section, the De Montfort University RS ended up winning the Martlesham trophy from the Lagan Valley ARS, but the Northern Ireland team have closed the margin this year with a much stronger performance on 6m. The Highland CG take the Cockenzie Quaich as the leading Scottish team in this section.
In the Low Power Section, the Warrington CG decimated the competition to conclusively win the section, with the Cambridge & DARS A team coming in second. Cambridge actually fielded low power stations on all 5 bands in the form of an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ team. The Scottish Trophy goes to the 2 man team of GM3TAL & G3SHK.
The tactical Mix & Match section saw the same placings as in 2003 at the top of the table, with Telford & DARS extending their lead a little over the Surrey Radio Contact Club and winning the G5BY trophy.
Open Section
Pos Group Name Locator 50 70 144 432 1296 Total
1 Colchester RA 01PU 482 0 947 1000 1000 3428
2 Windmill CG 01LD 772 621 1000 0 414 2807
3 Lothians RS 74WV 1000 1000 517 259 0 2776
4 Bracknell ARC & Flight Refuelling ARS 80ST 722 753 550 254 194 2278
5 Reigate ATS & Crawley ARC 01OC 303 0 832 637 391 2163
6 Cockenzie & Port Seton ARC 85RU 893 523 82 41 0 1539
7 Chesham & Maidenhead Clubs 91QS 309 315 456 81 172 1251
8 Stevenage & DARS 91TW 435 319 318 84 54 1156
9 Harlow & DARS 01BR 278 378 296 0 0 953
10 Mid Cheshire ARS 83QE 153 234 238 65 0 690
11 Wythall CG 92BJ 166 189 169 69 0 593
12 Dorking & DRS 91TE 112 0 74 29 0 215
13 Edgeware & DARS 91VO 0 0 79 0 0 79
Restricted Section
Pos Group Name Locator 50 70 144 432 1296 Total
1 De Montfort University RS 02ST 511 0 1000 1000 1000 3511
2 Lagan Valley ARS 74AI 1000 1000 500 389 0 2888
3 South Birmingham RS 82XJ 546 324 0 590 895 2355
4 Newbury & DARS 91GI 287 641 763 550 0 2242
5 RADARS 83VP 905 583 259 0 0 1747
6 Basingstoke ARC 91KG 125 0 536 344 732 1737
7 Highland CG 75DH 573 86 361 99 0 1118
8 Leicester RS 92IO 347 226 0 0 0 573
9 Andrew Warburton 84KF 0 0 468 0 0 468
10 Farnborough & DARS 91OG 14 0 167 32 216 430
11 Mexborough & DARS + South Yorks ARS 93HO 0 0 145 165 0 310
12 West Bromwich Central RC (A) 92BX 82 0 48 21 0 150
Low Power Section
Pos Group Name Locator 50 70 144 432 1296 Total
1 Warrington CG 93AD 0 0 1000 1000 1000 3000
2 Cambridge & DARS (A) 02CE 1000 436 377 0 0 1813
3 Two Counties CG (A) 92LJ 691 0 405 476 0 1573
4 GM3TAL & G3SHK 75IU 0 1000 114 52 0 1166
5 Goole R&ES 93PV 0 516 226 254 0 996
6 Nick Garbett 93AE 0 525 325 145 0 995
7 Sutton Coldfield RS 92FM 615 0 216 122 0 953
8 Mid Sussex ARS 90WV 247 0 241 436 0 924
9 Cambridge & DARS (B) 02CE 0 0 75 224 377 676
10 Andover RAC 91FH 0 224 213 110 0 547
11 Two Counties CG (B) 92LJ 0 319 0 0 0 319
12 South Bristol ARC 81QJ 0 89 170 0 0 259
13 Darneth Valley RS 01CJ 0 0 229 0 0 229
14 Clive O'Hennessy 78VB 0 83 0 0 0 83
Mix & Match Section
Pos Group Name Locator 50 70 144 432 1296 Total
1 Telford & DARS 82NN 698 672 638 0 641 2649
2 SRCC CG 91XH 205 0 812 610 450 2078
3 North Beds Gentlemans CG 92TI 0 475 436 318 821 2051
4 Shefford & DARS 92XA 229 500 520 572 0 1821
5 Bristol CG 81TK 330 0 342 351 746 1769
6 Torbay ARC (A) 80DQ 359 439 447 285 0 1529
7 Clifton ARS 01HH 321 488 176 533 0 1519
8 Newquay & DARS 70LJ 623 382 189 85 0 1279
9 Kentish Hills CG 01AH 206 291 369 351 0 1216
10 Guildford & DRS 91TF 318 617 184 0 67 1185
11 Salop ARS 82LQ 410 288 275 107 0 1080
12 Thornton Cleveleys ARS 83NU 373 271 124 40 0 807
13 Hillcrest ARS 82UL 0 0 0 35 111 146
Thanks to G6CSY, G4IRX, PE1EWR, G8ZK, M0BGR for check logs