GB0BB gets underway

Posted on 15/03/2014 by Writer

Friday evening saw the start of the GB0BB weekend.

This is a time when the club operates the call sign GB0BB in the aim of promoting to the world this last remaining Blackburn Beverley aircraft.

Within a couple shouts of CQ, the contacts started to flow and the log book was no longer looking empty – that is until gremlins started to set in. If something could go wrong, it did RF, I.T… it was all fine on Tuesday when setting up.. honest. With the quick response from the support team, downtime was minimised to a couple of minutes and the lads were back on the radio.

There were two stations running, one on 20m and the other on 40m, and five operators rotating throughout the night-time period to help maintain a constant operation.

The first contact was with a Japan station, which made Kevin’s day, this been his first ever contact into JA. Japan was not the only DX entity worked, with several pile ups in to North America as well as the EU and Asia. Kevin did try to work a ZL2 station, but alas, this was when a gremlin attacked.. Better luck next time Kev.

The morning saw a couple of relief operators arrive, and with this the added ability of fluent CW. All of a sudden the shack was quiet, just the sound of keys been pressed on the keyboard for the logging programs. As lunch arrived, the older guys started to feel the sound of their stomachs rumbling so a change of operators and a change of bands to try to avoid the ever-present contests.

Bad news: Half of the operators for operating over saturday night have called in sick, so now there will be only two. Good luck guys.

As the sun starts to set, the contest stations on 40m are becoming more prominent, making getting those contacts a struggle. If only there were no contests this weekend – oh well, we are persevering. The second station which was not setup for the WARC bands, is now relying on a 204ft dipole and a ATU to try to give us something on 17m and 12m. This has not really returned the results wanted, with what seems to be an inefficient setup. Hey, but atleast we have managed some contacts on 17m. Hopefully the evening will get better….

Good news: with the reduction in the number of operators this evening, we are splashing out, and indulging in a Chinese take-away, as opposed to the usual Fish & Chips. Cheers 🙂

From all of us here, Have a nice time, and hope to work you on our next Event: Museums on the Air (GB0FP) in June.

Operators:
Friday Evening: Pat (2E0KCW), Bob (M0RWL), Marcin, (M0GVL), Kevin (2E0KVK), Sean (2E0SCA)
Saturday Daytime: Dave (G4ASA), Mike (G4VHM)

Saturday Evening: Andy (G7LRR), Pat (2E0KCW), Jason (M0MGF)