Foundations of Amateur Radio

Going on an outing

After my fun and games working out how to manage power for a temporary radio set-up, away from my shack and normal infrastructure, I had the pleasure of actually going out to get on air and make some noise.

A national contest was on offer and it's always been a favourite of mine. It's simple to log, you can work as much or as little as you like and there's generally a good community spirit associated with it.

After mapping my way around the neighbourhood, I'd found a few candidate locations, nearby water, trees, parking, bit of separation from housing, all the good stuff you need when you go walkabout.

Had the opportunity to configure the car, setting up in an underground garage, nice and cool, good light, perfect start to a contesting day. Found a suitable route for the power lead from the battery to the radio, set-up the various bits, microphone, dummy load, untangled the wire antenna, all ready to go.

Got in the car an hour before the contest started and drove 5 minutes up the road to contesting location candidate number 1. Shame about the overhead power lines. On to location 2, shame about all the cars, location 3, overhead power lines, location 4, no parking signs, location 5 through 7 couldn't be found because the map and reality didn't quite agree with each other.

At that point I made the decision to go and have some lunch. Best thing I could have done. There was another location, number 8 or 28, who cares at this point, but it was 50km away, just under an hour drive. My trusty navigator and aspirant logger and I decided to bite the bullet and head on out into the great unknown.

We arrived an hour after the start of the contest. Drove up and down the shore of a local man-made lake and after dismissing several full sun locations, found a little dead end track with nice trees and plenty of shade. It's a 26°C day, so sitting in the full sun is not a pleasant thing in a dark car.

Used my rope and gifted weight - thanks Alan VK6PWD - to find a spot for the antenna wire, set-up and powered up. Tested the SWR. High, everywhere. Tested with different un-un settings, 16:1, 9:1, 4:1, high, everywhere. Found a loose connector, one I'd tested before packing and then another. Replaced them both, still high. Dummy load was fine.

Tried three different antenna layouts and decided to see if I could actually hear anything. Listened to all NCDXF beacons on all bands. Nothing. Not a sausage. At least the cattle coming past for a look-see were having a great time.

After all that, the only thing left to do was to pack up and drive home. Mind you, we did find a nice red wine on the way home, so it wasn't a complete loss.

In past years I might have been quite upset about this experience, but with experience comes acceptance that sometimes it's just not your day.

I'm furiously scribbling down all the things I've learnt from this outing. I'll leave that for another time.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB