VHF Contests from the Berwyns

Photos and report by Peter G3SJX

Over a 10 year period from 1972 to 1982 GW4ALE/P operated from Cadair
Berwyn, the summit of the Berwyn Mountain Range in north east Wales, on
12 separate occasions. Eight times on 2m, 3 times on 4m and once on 70cm,
4m was the most successful achieving two first places and a second in the
main open contest. The closest road access to the summit is from
Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant and then it is a 2-mile hike with 1000ft height gain
to the summit at 2730ft (832m). Two friends of ours with off-road trials bikes
took most of the equipment to the summit but the generator was lashed to the
masts and carried by convoy to the summit. We were a lot younger and fitter
in those days.

VHF Field Day from Hamel Down, Dartmoor

Photos and report by Peter G3SJX

For 6 years in the early 1980s we combined with the HADRABS contest group to operate VHF Field Day from Hamel Down on Dartmoor. This high elevated ridge on the eastern side of Dartmoor is around 530m asl and enabled our four stations to be widely separated. AARC ran 4m (G4ALE/P) and 23cm (G4JAR/P) and HADRABS ran 2m (G4BAR/P) and 70cm (G8PUB/P). The equipment was all loaded on a trailer and transported to the summit ridge by the local farmer using a tractor. With consistent high scores from all stations, we won overall on two occasions and were narrowly beaten to 2^nd place on a third.

UHF Contests from East Kent

Photos and report by Peter G3SJX

During the 1980s, we operated in a number of UHF contests from sites in
East Kent, in particular from the Isle of Sheppey and near Manston. For
UHF Field Day we combined with the HADRABS contest group to cover 70cm,
23cm, 13cm and even higher up to 3cm. Our key focus in particular was
23cm where Harry, G3SBV, and Alan, G4GLN, had put together a formidable
set-up. A full legal power linear amplifier was constructed with 6
parallel 2C39A valves. Initially the antenna was a box of four
23-element Yagis (92 element) but later another box was added to make a
184 element array.