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A great turnout for the setup of our HF Mills Station on Saturday. Loads of members there, and thanks to everyone who pitched in. Particular thanks to Alan and Stella for dragging the trailer up the hill, to Kim for the loan of the Honda generator and Phil for the loan and setup of his vertical antenna and SGC Smartuner.
Everything was conducted in fabulous sunshine, with a gentle cooling breeze to keep the workcrew fresh. Everything worked perfectly right off the bat.
Apart from the radio.
The club shack's Yaesu FT-847 appeared to be working when tested on AM, but when switched to SSB, there was nothing more than a carrier. That's going to need looking at to see if it can be saved from the 'spares or repair' section of eBay.
Luckily, Alan had also bought along his Icom IC-7100 as backup, and it was quickly pressed into service. It performed well all day, the antenna tuned on every frequency we requested from it (we tried virtually all bands, but quickly settled on 40m and stayed there pretty much all day) and the generator kept up with the demand from the trailer without issue.
The bands weren't really playing ball though. First contact was to Ken G3WYN for a quick test, followed by a good handful of G stations including a sprinkling of MOTA participants.
Things seemed to die-off in the middle of the day, and I'm not sure how the afternoon panned out, as I popped home for lunch before making my way over to Chailey to see how the chaps were getting on over there.
Chailey Heritage Windmill is in a beautiful location up on Red House Common and looked stunning in the afternoon sunshine. If you've never been, make sure you get over there next year. Myself, Merv and Steve all popped in to see Chris, Kevin and Gavin doing well despite the state of the bands (again 40m being the most fruitful) and the delta-loop antenna seemingly reluctant to match particularly well to the radio. That was later traced to a slightly misleading tuner configuration, which just need an inductor adjustment.
GB0CHW achieved a respectable number of QSO's, again with a good few mills in the log, including a few Dutch callsigns.
Thanks again to all the MSARS members that participated, and to the Downland Radio Group for the invite over to Chailey.
Looking forward to next year already, although there are a range of other celebratory xOTA activations going on throughout the summer. Watch this space.
73
Berni M0XYF
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I've just received the photos from this year's Construction Contest, so thought I would share them with you.
First up, the 'Section 1' winner Phil G4UDU with a very tidy looking multi-band filter.
The 'Section 2' award went to Peter G4AKG. His 2m valve linear amplifier was a worthy winner.
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After the chaos caused by the PAT testing carried out at the club shack, (Alan and Stella did a great job of pulling it all out at short notice and dealing with the PAT testing police by the way) Friday night saw everything re-installed, fired up and tested with negligible issues thankfully. This saved the club some money, as we effectively got a discounted rate because we had our stuff done at the same time as the rest of Cyprus Hall.
The trailer was also straightened out and loaded with the requisite hardware to undertake Mills tomorrow, so we should be good to go.
Thanks to everyone who turned up and helped out. Many hands and all that. Nice to see so many people doing their bit.
Enjoy your weekend, whatever you're up to.
73's
Berni M0XYF
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As well as our own Mills On The Air Special Event Station GB0JAJ this Saturday, the Downland Radio Group are at Chailey Heritage Windmill - also on the Saturday, so if that suits you better, then MSARS members have been invited to go along and take a look. It's possible to operate inside the mill itself at Chailey, and Gavin, Chris and Kevin will be operating the GB0CHW station from around 10:00am until 4:00pm.
Much like up at the Jack and Jill, apparently it can get a bit chilly there, so go prepared. Honestly, I don't understand why they have to put windmills in such awfully draughty places.
If none of that takes your fancy, then Worthing and District ARC are running GB0HSM out of High Salvington Mill, a beautifully restored post mill not dissimilar in appearance to Jill Mill on the Sunday only.
So you have no excuse for not getting involved in the various MOTA activities this weekend. The weather does genuinely look pretty good for both days, so get outside and propagate some RF.
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VP6A will be on the air from Ducie Island (OC-182) from June 10 to June 24, 2023 (actual dates will be subject to WX). There will be five stations on the air on all bands from 160 to 6 meters, working CW, SSB and FT8.
Following the successful test of remote operations at FO/AA7JV, where over 11,000 remotely operated QSOs were made by five remote operators, VP6A will apply this concept to a full rare island DXPedition. A total of 14 operators based in North America, Europe and Asia will operate land based remote controlled stations around the clock. There will only be three local operators at Ducie: W6IZT, KN4EEI and AA7JV. This small team will set up and maintain the stations and operate locally from the nearby boat. They will visit the island once a day to refuel the generators and do any necessary maintenance. In line with the minimum foot-print concept, there will be no camping on the island.
This will be the first full DXpedition utilizing the RIB concept that features a large number of remote operators with a small footprint on a remote island. Four RIBs (Radio In a Box) will provide a total of 5 stations capable of 24/7 operation on 10 bands.
The RIBs feature complete stations capable of up to 1 kW in a weather-tight housing that allow remote operation. These RIBs were developed with support from Northern California DX Foundation. The goal is to enable a new, minimum impact operating mode for environmentally sensitive areas. RIBs also speed up the installation of stations. This will enable our small three-person team to build the five stations, including antennas, in a relatively short time.
All donations should be made to the Northern California DX Foundation (www.ncdxf.org).
Ducie island is No 56 on ClubLog’s most wanted list. On the 6 meter band it is No. 26, therefore given we will be active during the E season, a special focus will be placed on 6 meter operation with gain antennas and a power amplifier.
Additional details and the list of operators, as well as regular updates will be posted on the VP6A QRZ.compage.
