This year has been rather busy education wise before June 2004; I had my first set of exams/assignments to complete which I completed with great results. In September I then started the final year of AVCE information communications technology. Then in September 2005 I hope to start university doing a Multimedia Technology BSc course!
Right back to the radio side of 2004, this year has had its up and downs like you have read above. But over all it has been a good year radio wise, I’ve made a good number of qso’s although it isn’t as many as I might have liked its just one of those things.
A new rig has been put into the shack Kenwood TS-570dge and a Heil headset with the dx insert which work in a fabulous way together and make it much easier to bust pile ups, this is used during contests with a full size g5rv in and inverted V formation.
Although I haven’t really played about with any news modes on HF though I’ve been tinkering with APRS on 144.800 MHz using a Yaesu FT-1500m and a Watson WMM-3 interface and a soundcard with the UiView32 software. Which has been a good lesson in getting things working but now its working when I’m in the shack its normally on.
Outside operating on the bands I’ve attended quite a few amateur radio events radio rallies and the HF & IOTA convention where I met a lot of the worldwide young contesters (WWYC) members like M0BLF, M0RHI, G0MTN, M0CLW, DJ9AO (M0TAO), M0DXR just to name a few where we all spent a lot of time at the bar drinking to much.
Well this year I took part in around 20/30 contests a mixture of SSB, RTTY and PSK31 I would have liked to put more time into operating contests but education stood in my way!
This year I’ve tired to do a bit of VHF contest and took part in the RSGB vhf field day and some backpacker’s contests although I did not submit the log that will be my plan for 2005 to submit results and get a position on the contest table.
The SSB side of contesting this year has been fun, I’ve taken part in quite a few of these contests from the EU sprints to CQWW which I made 161q’s in using a Kenwood TS570DGE and for a change myself and my dad (M3JFM) erected a Full size folded back G5RV antenna this seemed to work really well and is now put up as and when during weekends to operate in contests.
Digital contesting I have enjoyed the most I’m improving my skills every contest whether it is operating or software skills these will help improve my score. My log also shows that 60% of it is made up of RTTY qso’s. Which I think will go up this year even more in % of the log.
Hopefully 2005 can bring lots of new experiences to.