Peter G8BLS operating on the beach

Australian Jamboree Contact

Peter Best G8BLS tells us how he headed to a Suffolk beach to make contact with the Australian Jamboree station VI2AJ2010 at Cataract Scout Park, near Sydney.

Firstly a BIG 'BRAVO' to all those at the Australian Jamboree who have put together the station VI2AJ2010 and been running it for the last 10 days. The members of Fisher's Ghost Amateur Radio Club have done the Jambo proud. And thanks for the EchoLink conference last Saturday, Scout Net will not be the same again!

Don't you just like it when 'a plan comes together'? After days of watching the Snow and the Thermometer Fall, not to mention watching the radio numbers, Wednesday Jan 13 was the only day I could go and try to work VI2AJ2010 via 'real wireless'.

Having had several QSOs via IRLP I had expected to use that to confirm what frequency VI2AJ2010 was on, BUT as I was driving down to Felixstowe another VK station called up via our local node and after a few minutes of chatting he suffered 'packet loss' and the node declared 'Node Disabled', oh 'bother'!!! I said!

At this point I thought this is going to fall apart, as I had earlier tried to look at the radio numbers and all I got was the box with the little red X in. So I carried on to Landguard Fort at Felixstowe, and arrived at a very cold and snowy car park 200 yards from the water, I made two trips across to the beach with batteries, rigs, pole and other kit.

Having looked at the Great Circle map and the OS map, I knew take off was required on a bearing of 63 degrees E of N, so I set up my MFJ 10 metre pole with a 10m length of wire, to be either an End Fed 1/2 wave Vertical on 20m or a 1/4 wave on 40m, as near to the previous tide mark as I dared, with another hour or so of tide to make.

My QTH was at 51deg, 56min, 16.48secs N and 001deg, 19min, 30.38secs E and a play with Google Earth suggests a path length of some 16,867.45Km. On switching on and having a very small tweak on the End Fed 1/2 Wave feed unit I tuned around 20m.

Not a great deal! several Italians and even more European Russian stations, but no JAs or VKs. One of the joys of working from the beach (apart from the crashing waves, the chilly East wind etc) is the low background noise S0 !! So back to 14,190 KHz and who do I hear calling CQ but VI2AJ2010 at S6-7, BINGO.

Peter's equipment

At 10-14 GMT a call (using 100 watts from my back pack mounted Alinco DX70 into the 'Great Big 10db Salt Water Amplifier), produced a very solid QSO with Craig who gave me 5/5 with a fair bit of static, (left over from their last thunderstorm) .

I learned that Bob VK6POP (I assume) was on 40m, but I nothing heard from VI2AJ2010, and having made several calls on their frequency, I did just hear a very weak signal that mentioned "the Scout station's frequency" and that was it. So back to 20m and signals now up to S9, and other stations were starting to appear, in a gap I called back to report the increase in signal.

At one point an S9 Italian came up on channel and started calling CQ, so I politely advised him that the frequency was occupied, and he apologised and moved away, he could hear me OK but not VI.

By 11:30 it was time for me to go, so one last contact, I passed my final (final) 73. Signals now up to ten db over S9 at times, another video recording on the camera and time to pack up, I left Craig with a pile-up in full swing.

I took all the kit back to the car except the aerial, and walked it back across the beach (luckily no photographers about) whilst listening on an FT 817 slung around my neck. At the tide line S9+, 50 yards away S9, 100yds (half way) S8, 150 yards S7 and 200 yards (in the car park) S6 or less. As the great circle line of shoot is diagonally across the beach and that put some 400 yards of sand and shingle beach on the path.

For those interested in the use of the 'GB10dbSWA' and the effect of a Very Low PBA (Pseudo Brewster Angle) have a look at the ARRL Antenna Handbook 3-13 (20th Edition) or Google PBA.

For those of you who thought I was a QRP person, fret not, I did have my trusty IC703 and two FT817s with me, but I had a limited time window and wanted a 'sure fire' set up, as it happened Craig was suffering from a high static level and I had no real background noise at all, so we might have struggled at 5 or 10 watts.

In all, one of those mornings you remember, made a plan and with the help of others, It Worked.

Thanks to all at Cataract Park for a very fine 10 days of Radio Scouting.

YIRS [Yours In Radio Scouting]
73

Peter Best, G8BLS