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The 2015 annual VHF national field day is now officially finished. So what’s the news?

Firstly I managed so excellent DX from the comfort of my own shack.

DX you say?

Yep 3 countries

Wow(?)…well yes they were EI,GM and GW so not exactly a long way but DX none the less.

Uhh?

Well yes, if the bands are normally silent and there’s not a station to be heard then the end of the village is DX.

But if there’s a bit of activity as there was this weekend then its always nice to work a few stations in other countries. But what would be really nice is to hear this level of activity on the bands regularly, and there to be rag chewing alongside contesting.

The ‘official entry’ from Workington was camped up on Corney Fell. I arrived too late to help get set up due to domestic duties but the photo’s didn’t do the conditions justice. There was a good 30+ mph wind up there and that 2m antenna was flapping about a lot. Hence the extra guy .

The VHF bands are XYL friendly in my house as the antenna’s are smaller, can be overlooked (on occasion) and don’t warrant the usual response of ‘What the hell is that doing there?’ and ‘ How long do you intend on keeping that thing there?’ The answer to both of these questions is to mumble a bit and pretend to be busy doing something important.

So here’s a plea. Don’t make me take down this antenna, or worse still turn it vertically for FM. I’d quite like to work stations regularly on VHF SSB or even CW. Remember to switch the rig on, look for IO84 square and break the silence. A response to one contester today on 70cms was ‘That woke me up, I’ve been calling for 2 hours solidly and you’re the first one today’ isn’t good.

Months of less than pleasant weather gave way to a sunny but breezy weekend. Ideal for the NFD contest. There was quite a bunch of us involved but unfortunately due to a domestic planning error we had family staying.

I did my bit by helping to set up and an hour or so of logging but no operating. Shame really as, working under Andrews callsign G4VFL/P across 6m, 4m and 2m all in around 180 qso’s were made.

Nice and relaxed contesting from the top of a very isolated fell road. Well done all.