Tag: 10m

RSGB 21/28MHz Contest

RSGB 21/28MHz Contest - 4th October 2015. Operating from Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker.

The 15m and 10m beams.

A few of us decided to have a go in the RSGB 21/28MHz contest on Sunday. We used Georges call, M1GEO and a combination of equipment from us all. I brought my 3 element 28MHz Yagi, Dave M0TAZ brought the two masts and his 21MHz 4 element Yagi, while George and his dad brought the Icom IC-7700 and generator. Fred G3SVK also came and done some CW.

UK stations can only work outside the UK and non UK stations can only work UK stations. This made it quite hard work as there was not much activity due to the bands not being in good shape, especially 10m. We could hear some beacons though, although not strong, we received a beacon in Brazil and one in Argentina. We did work some good DX however, including South Africa, Uruguay, Brazil and VP8NO in the Falkland Islands on 28MHz.

The operating table.

The operating table.

Still, we had fun operating outside in the October sunshine for possibly the last time this year!

Working a few on 10m (28MHz) with a half wave vertical

28MHz has been in good shape recently, so I wanted to go out portable and try my end fed half wave parallel tuned circuit coupler as I have not tried it on 10m before. The band was in good shape (unlike the weather) and it seemed to work well. I managed to work some good DX whilst I was there, the log can be seen below.

November 2014 10m log

I also took a little video of me working VA3AQB – Alan in Canada. The coupler seemed to work well on 10m and with a bit more bandwidth than other bands, perhaps because very little capacitance was needed. I’m enjoying making the most of the higher bands whilst they are open! John.