RadCom Report October 2013
After months of planning and organising the Hilderstone club hosted the G100RSGB call sign for a day. It was a tremendous day, with everyone helping and working together as a team. We had been evicted from our club premises by the Broadstairs Folkweek so we held the event at Monkton Nature Reserve using no mains power! The weather was kind to us and we were able to operate outside as well as inside the Monkton Observatory. Members of the club rallied round to operate and log or just offer moral support, whether they were foundation licensees or using HF for the first time. Despite the logistical problems we managed to operate PSK31, CW, SSB and FM, on bands 80, 40, 20, 17, 15, 12, 10, 4 and 2 metres and 70cm. We gave updates on twitter and had some excellent contacts, including the Sahara desert where the temperature was rising to 50 degrees! The RSGB DRM Keith Bird G4JED attended most of the day and he felt it was a great success for the club.
The following weekend saw the club taking part in the Lighthouses and Lightships weekend, using the call sign GB0NFL, as we were next to the North Foreland Lighthouse. Again it was a superb event, using simply a ‘shack in a box’ running on a battery and an inverted V antenna. The operators struggled with the pile ups but a fun time was had by all.