A familiar annual event on our calendar is the National Field Day (NFD) Contest, one in which over the years we have had some success with plenty of first places.
This as in previous years the team will be operating from Common Barn Farm with setup within the period allowed for in the rules. The callsign in use will be G5O/P and operators on this occasion will be Carsten G0SYP, Dave G0LZL, Evan M0TJU, Kieron M5KJM & Bernard G3SHF.
The contest gets underway at 4pm local time Saturday finishing 24 hours later on Sunday. The rules can be viewed by following this link and it is intended that during the event Pete M1PTR’s log monitor will be active so we can view the contacts being made.
The bands to monitor are the CW portions of 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, & 10 Metres and the Reverse Beacon Network is a good site for monitoring signals appearing on the bands and remember DX Summit. As for Propagation, Propquest is a site to keep your eyes on and remember this is a field day event so searching out those portable stations around the UK, Europe and beyond is a must plus contacts on top band count double.
Good luck lads, have a profitable trouble free weekend and let’s hope the weather and propagation gods look down on you favourably.
For information on previous years activities please follow the link below.
https://www.g8srs.co.uk/national-field-day-contests-results/
Update Saturday 7th June 2025
With the kick off of this years’ event a mere few hours away our onsite reporter, Tom M0DCG provides an update as to work undertaken yesterday at Common Barn Farm……
…today’s team consisted of Kieron, Peter, Bernard, Dave and myself.
As there had been a considerable amount of rain recently we expected the field to be wet, however to our surprise the going was dry which made setting up the station easier than expected.
Work began by positioning the Worcester mast and erecting the operating tent. We were pleasantly surprised to note that the tent went up quite easily for a change! The station generator plus a back-up was then unloaded and the power supply set up. After the TH5 antenna had been fitted to the mast it was raised and the rotator and tri-bander antenna tested.
Following lunch, work concentrated on raising dipoles for top band (160 Metres) and 80 Metres along with a delta loop for 40 Metres, as well as connecting up the antenna switching gear and setting up the computers. Initially a continuity problem was found with the top band dipole, however this was traced & corrected. By the time we departed at 4.30pm the station was felt to be in good order and ready for Saturday afternoon.
(Photos courtesy of Pete M1PTR)
