Radio Society of Great Britain. Official HF. Contest Results.

Results. National Field Day 2003. Results | Soapbox

“Very short of operators for Sunday made it hard going. Found conditions on 40m very poor and had to close down at times due to high static levels.” G0SOA/P

“What happened to propagation to the West?! Leading band for North America was 160m with two contacts followed by 80 & 40 with one each. Nothing on 20m which must be an entirely unwanted first.” G3ASR/P

“Very enjoyable contest. After a couple of minor setbacks we eventually got under way properly at 1545 ish. An opening on 28 MHz and a better opening on 21 MHz would have made it even more enjoyable. At least the thunder storm held off until the end of the contest.” G3CNX/P

“Conditions poor all round, no DX. Other than our gripe about people not slowing down, all the equipment worked well and we had nice fish and chips as usual on Saturday. WX stayed dry apart from 30 mins very heavy static rain (S9) on Sun a.m. Very windy during tear down.” G3GHN/P.

“All bands noisy due to thunderstorms. Nothing too local! Ten metres very poor - if there were any openings we missed them! Otherwise a pleasant weekend” G3GLL/P

“Late preparations-inadequate planning-laptop wiped out 20/15/10 so back to paper logging - good fun. Ed put up the antenna and made the tea. Des did the easy bit. Could do better.” G3HKO/P

“Bad noise at times on 160/80 but good fun apart from heavy rain from noon Sunday including strip down which made us VERY WET.” G3IZD/P

“I have been instructing for 40 years long before the Novice was introduced. NFD is the training ground for all younger operators and one rough NFD night is more valuable than a year of class room teaching.” G3JRM/P

“Just a fun entry but it's amazing what 5W and a low dipole can achieve.” G3KKQ/P

“Our first effort; great fun although we had generator problems” G3KLH/P

“Condx pretty good even ten was kind to us. Plenty of gremlins and we never got to grips with all of them. Changeable WX –sunshine, gales and very heavy rain, but we all enjoyed it.” G3NJA/P

“Didn't manage to do quite as well this year (excuses various), but it was still great fun...although it doesn't count for anything much it was nice to catch VQ9JC Chagos Islands on 15m. Wx held off until 4.30 on the Sunday morning. Operated entire contest on battery. Strawberries were good on the fruit farm we operated from!...cu next year for 'hopefully' better result” G3SAD/P

“Had good WX except for a shower during the night, until the last 2 hours, when we had a severe thunderstorm. At the height of storm the generator ran out of propane, and the intrepid G4LPD ran 100 yards in the pouring rain to change gas bottles. After last year's dream condx on ten meters, this time we were back to normal, hunting for a few G stations. Found 40m very hard going, and hence out lowest score for some years on that band. Top band and 80m were surprisingly good though, given the high QRN levels. With all the (very welcome) activity from Eastern Europe, NFD is almost unrecognisable from when I was first involved (in 1957). In those days only stations in G took part, plus a few, mainly British Forces, stations overseas. I think about that time stations in Switzerland joined in. Of course each station only operated 3 bands - nominated in advance- and were QRP with 10 watts.” G3TBK/P

“We thought we had a problem with SD as we could not change operator calls in the program, so we used an old version of SD. Every time we used the scrolling arrows in this version the program locked up and had to reboot the computer. We used this for about 4 hours till we realised Cabrilo logs could not cater for operators calls in the log, we wasted a lot of time with this problem. Sunday we had gale force winds that nearly blew the tent away, Tony G0OPB saved the day by holding it in place till we lashed it down again. See you next year.” G3ULT/P

“This year I elected to make a single op single band entry near the sea at Hythe. Antenna was a tripod fibreglass telescopic pole with wire taped to it, tuned against the briny. Conditions were difficult, so grabbed 3.5 hours sleep in small hours and finished early. Looking forward to next year's event” G3YXX/P

“Pity condx were so poor, also the storms on sunday afternoon did not help! Despite this, great contest but seems to be getting short on activity levels. We had a superb genuine Hungarian Goulash on the sunday cooked by our HA member, Atilla. This attracted 20 other members to the site for a nice club get-together.” G4ARN/P

“Operating hours - one session 1500-0300z. Rig Elecraft K2 battery powered, 5W output, antenna doublet 204ft top, 30ft high. An enjoyable Field Day, and this was another of the Bracknell battery powered entries, very similar to last year's station. A lightweight aluminium mast was used, and we used John G3NCN's camping trailer for operating. Great these 12 hour events - left home around 2pm local, station on the air well before the start. All packed away by 5am local and back home at 5.30. Pity the forecast rain started on schedule just as we were ready to take the station down!!

- otherwise a dry weekend.” G4BRA/P

“Having got the antenna and station set up in 2 1/2 hours, (a record) we managed to get in a pint (or 2) at the local pub before the start of the contest” G4FNL/P

“The Malvern Club's first ever entry in this event. Very short of operators but all enjoyed the event, particularly the well attended BBQ on the Saturday evening. Rain throughout the night and a couple of torrential downpours during Sunday afternoon. One of these had extreme static levels which caused the ATU to flash over for over 30 minutes. It also reset the memory contents on one of the keyers.” G4MHC/P

“Condx were not good all the equipment worked fine no breakdowns or major problems. Lovely Barbeque on Sat night, then Sunday we ended up holding down the tent in a horrendous storm we were surprised not to lose the mobile tower the wind was that bad otherwise good fun” G4NOK/P

“Band conditions were not very special, but we did find a few openings on 10m! Having lost one of our main operators, we took the opportunity to train three new ones. I think they all had a fun, if a somewhat stressed time. The wx was also a bit challenging, at one stage we expected the tent to end up in the next county and the new crank-up tower jammed on the way down due to the high winds. Fortunately a few good tugs on the guy ropes freed it off! See you all next year.” G5LO/P

“We were inspected by an official examiner on Saturday evening and the station was given a "clean sheet". Used a silenced diesel gennie to keep the locals happy but need not have bothered as the noise from an illegal 'Rave' 2 Km away was shaking the sides of the caravan from midnight to 8am! We treated NFD this year as a true club social event and anyone with basic CW capability was given a chance to operate and gain contest experience. We had an exceptional turnout of helpers, friends and family members and all enjoyed a good barbecue in warm sunshine on the Saturday evening. Before the competition started, we broke the antenna 3 times, which persuaded us to rush to the local equipment supplier for better wire and to make up another one as a spare. Fortunately, we did not need to use the spare after all! We appreciate the efforts and support of all the RSGB folk and members involved in the competition and its judging.” G5RS/P

“Check log only - operation for approx 12 hrs testing genny/tent/bbq etc !!” G6PZ/P

“Good to be taking part in NFD again after a three year break. HF bands were disappointing, but improved Sunday with a brief opening on 10m. We were pleased to work a few Ws on 160m. Pity they aren't worth much. Weather was in usual NFD form. Rain during setup... very heavy rain overnight, and thunder storms near the end

when we had to close down for about 30mins” G6YB/P

“GM0AAA/p" completes the series. The Three A's Contest Group has now operated from each of the seven DXCC countries which make up the UK. Although we had originally hoped to operate right by the sea at the Mull of Galloway lighthouse, we were unable to do because of difficulty with 'the bird people'. We ended up operating

over one mile from the sea.” GM0AAA/P

“Good to see the increase from the UK, but still no GW. Condx not the best and a fair amount of QRN on LF” GM3POI/P

“Bands were very noisy with deep QSB. Little propagation on 10m and 15m was a hard struggle.This was a last minute effort but the results are encouraging for a better organised one next year” GM4AGG/P

“Had a good day and plenty fun thats what its all about. Not out to win but improved on last year” GM4GRC/P

“Well up on last years score! Good time had by all. No problems with rain down in the sunny south. Where were the GJ boys? 250ft above Guernsey's west coast. CU next year!” GU3HFN/P

“What a surprise this contest turned out to be. For nostalgic reasons (first visit to a FD station was in 1969) I wanted to have a go and give away some points. Simple set-up with IC746 and an HF6V mounted right beside the car. This was a disaster, at the slightest whiff of RF the laptop exploded into life and started sending keyer messages left right and centre. Apologies to those who received their report several times! With no spares(ferrites or a longer length of coax to move the HF6V) I had to turn the power down it its minimum which is about 6watts. This worked most of the time and the amazing thing is I could still work just about everyone I called! I think I missed the best conditions on Saturday and Sunday was wet and noisy which just adds to my feeling that this contest provides a much more level playing field and fun factor than most. I think I will be back next year with the full 10 watts, paper log and a morse key!” MM0BQI/P

“Our first ever HF contest as a group and our first ever NFD. Add to that a new antenna and a new ATU and you get an idea of the learning curve we went through for NFD 2003! Despite all that we had great fun and enjoyed the event even though our score could have been considerably better - for the first few hours we struggled with the SGC ATU we had as it kept trying to re-tune during our QSOs. This meant that the radio kept defaulting to 25w output into a high SWR. Hardly an ideal scenario. Fortunately we had taken a spare ATU and balun which were eventually deployed and which worked flawlessly from then onwards. Conditions seemed to be best on Saturday. Sunday was a bit of a struggle with most bands quite difficult. However, at least 10m opened a bit on Sunday to allow us a few double point QSOs on the band. Oh, and did I mention we were not M0FVC/P, GM0FVC/P or OM0FVC/P! Never had so much trouble with a callsign for ages - must trade it in for a new one!” MM0FVC/P

“New site, new team & new section. An enjoyable weekend. Many learning points for next years event such as 'How did we put that mast up last year?' or 'the generator

works better when filled with petrol not fresh air' We'll be back next year!” M5MDX/P

“Just a bit of fun to give out a few points as my local clubs don't "NFD" anymore!! Conditions poor and got absolutely soaked setting up (near Steenvoorde 59)” F/G3VQO/P

“I worked at it this year. Signals on 15 and at times on 20 were very faint, but conditions on 80 were good. And, surprisingly, I worked 29 stations on 160! Had never tried it before in NFD but had the packet on and noticed some spots for it so I went there and was surprised. My renovated EWE receiving antenna is certainly working well!” K3ZO

“Condx were abysmal, deep QSB on 20 both days and it was definitely a case of "work them on the rise". 10 and 15 were zero although I heard Europeans doing a QSY to those bands. 40 turned out to be the best.” VE3DZZ/P