The Club opened the doors yet again to guests and ham clubs around the region, and turned out to be a massive success. The Club house was packed throughout the activation of the Haven Mill during the Mills On the Air weekend.
We had many people come join us, and we also welcomed old friends to the club house as many have not seen the new QTH at Patrington.
The event itself was very busy, and we had 3 stations running for the majority of the time, gaining us many more friends around the world. The operators worked tirelessly through even the relatively poor conditions for the weekend.
The response from other Hams was what can only be described as superb, and we would like to thank every one of them for the support.
The weekend was more about bringing the club and community together, and bringing awareness of the hobby to many who have never been on a radio. Also to support local Clubs from around the region so we may build a successful relationship with the local hams.
Again many thanks to everyone who took part over the weekend and to each guest that came to visit us.
Sue we hope you recover soon, we need our 80m queen back at the radio.
Well this weekend will see the start of upgrades to the shack, new band-pass filters for 160 80 40 20 15 10 meters will be fitted over the next month which have all been re-tuned By Nick G0SDI and Andy G7LRR. What a massive job this was and getting the filters in situe without altering the tuning and keeping an SWR was very frustrating ( as anyone who has undertaken this job will know ).
These filters also work hand in hand with a set of Coax stub filters that work on the high power side that all have to be tuned to complement the band-pass filters.
New cat7a cable to go in for the network over the month, which is a total new layout of cable throughout the mill. We are also automating the rotator which was always one of the jobs on the “to do” list.
This year the HFDXARC acquired the brand new contest call of M6C which we are very proud of and put to good use this time around.
This contest itself is very different from the CQWW, in that we can only score points with QSOs in the USA and Canada, and this meant a totally different strategy being adopted.
The team comprised of 10 members who were all geared up for different time slots throughout the weekend. This in itself was difficult, as we needed the station staffed at all times, even when North America was sleeping.
Friday night saw a team of 3 begin the contest, which started very slow ( as expected ) and eventually sprang into action sat morning. We held frequencies on 10 / 15 / 20 meters and called CQ, to which the response was amazing. At one stage on Sunday, we racked up a 400 QSO count over 2 hours.
So as you can imagine it was frantic and none stop, but during this period an old friend of the Club from over the pond, Steve W4SLT called in and wanted a quick chat with Andy G7LRR. Not exactly the right time eh, but Steve has not spoken to anyone at the Club in over 10 years, and even paid us a visit from across the pond one year. It was an absolute pleasure working with Steve who is now back in touch with the Club.
Amazingly, with the conversation over, I called CQ Contest again and was hit by a wall of stations calling in. Credit to the Americans for their patience and understanding, top operators.
So we kept at it and went right through to the finish Sunday midnight. We hit over One million points for this contest, which is an amazing achievement for the Club, given it was the first time entered by us.
The whole weekend was an absolute pleasure to be involved in, and again the support shown by both Club members and guests was incredible.
A few pictures from the event are below, but the intended video was not done as planned due to how busy everyone was. The next one we shall be better prepared for.
A massive thanks go out to everyone who took part, and to all those who supported us throughout the planning and execution of the contest. The club is picking itself back up after Covid and has a very vibrant feel to it. We have new and old members joining and also have now adopted a digital membership, following many recent requests. More details are on the website regarding this.
Call signs of contesters are
Andy G7LRR – Chris G0URG – Steve M0EBJ – Andy 2E1TAP – SUE M6URG – DAVE 2E0TKO – KEVIN M0KVK – MARCIN M0GLV – LEE G0ULN – John G6LNV
We welcome visitors, guests, and membership requests and openly encourage you all to come down and see us at the clubhouse.
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