During the week before the contest there were some very nasty thunderstorms and heavy rain but we were spared the bad weather.   It just spat with rain about an hour before the end of the contest.  At times it was quite warm in the tents.

This year we entered 3 stations in the low power section, (1 aerial, 10 meters max height, 25 watts out from transmitter). The 6m station ran for eight hours on Saturday and we experienced some fantastic propagation, most probably sporadic E.  We shall see if we are the band leader again this year. The 4m station ran on Sunday for 6 hours, conditions seemed quite poor.  The new transverter built by Elisabeth worked very well with nice sounding compressed audio from the H.F. driver.  2m ran for 16 hours, the maximum allowed in the low power section, with a slight lift late Saturday evening.

Mark worked hard to repair one of our Clarke masts over winter and it worked perfectly. We only needed to put up 2 masts this year because we changed aerials on Sunday morning. Aerials were 5 ele MET yagi on 6 & 4 meters and 17 ele on 2m.

We used a diesel generator provided by Ian Alexander with a standby provided by Mike Addlesee. Very few problems this year really, a broken feeder, an open circuit balun coil, and a low voltage power supply ( because somebody's feet must have moved the voltage control on the front panel !!!)

Another great team effort for the club and everybody really enjoyed themselves. We could do with a few more operators.

Our special thanks to Graham (Mark's friend), for the loan of his 4 wheel drive to pull the trailer.

Lovely cake Elisabeth.