The CQ WW RTTY contest runs towards the end of September, and this year George M1GEO and myself decided to enter the contest under our own callsigns from our contest site at the Secret Nuclear Bunker.
We decided to keep it simple, using just two aerials.
1/ 80m dipole @ 30m
2/ 40m 1/4 wave ground mounted.
The 40m vertical is a tried and tested antenna, but on this occasion, we decided to try elevated the radials. Peter G0DZB highlighted an article from N6LF, suggesting that elevated radials increased the performance of your vertical. I decided to purchase some plastic posts to elevate the radials 1m above the ground. The plastic posts are designed for holding up electric fence wires and so ideal for the job. The radial system required at least 4 posts, and the results were noticed almost immediately.
The VSWR was much flatter across the entire 40m band, and so the antenna was connected to a 1:1 balun and fed with coax.
Both George and I used the solid-state amplifiers by Expert, the 1.3KFA ideal for running 400w RTTY.
The M1GEO station with tea, Cola and some Reggi Reggi sauce, all field day essentials at hand.
The M0TAZ station
Over the course of the weekend, with some casual style operating I had worked 390Q in 42 DXCC. The highlights for me was working Panama, Indonesia, Thailand, Paraguay and Argentina.
21 MHz was open, although I decided not to take my 4E beam and opted to press the 7 MHz vertical into service on this band. It worked quite well, again no ATU required.
A field day is never complete without some excellent food from Fred G3SVK and Dianne. On Saturday they provided a lovely curry and on Sunday a spaghetti bolognese. Very much appreciated by everyone.
Camping over for the night gave me a chance to appreciate the sunrise on Sunday morning.
Altogether a very enjoyable weekend, in some great September weather.