VHF and up portable evening on 24th August

TDARS outdoor meeting on 24th August was portable VHF and up, and took place on the village field in Little Wenlock. The club makes good use of the local field during the summer.There was a good turn out on a evening that was warm but with rain clouds never too far away.

Over 15 members came along and brought 2m, 70cm 4m and 10GHz gear to use and demonstrate.A few members had their first 10GHz QSO to member Paul M0PNN who was also portable near Woodseaves, North Shropshire, putting in a good solid signal, most of the evening. The setup belongs to Dave G8VZT which driven by FT817 to a transverter running 80mW into a horn antenna and bouncing the signal off the Wrekin to make the contacts.

Peter G4URT took along his 2m setup and worked 3 FT8 stations and being heard in JO42. Paul G8AQA & Heather M0HMO had their 2m SSB setup. Chairman Simon G0UFE demonstrated his range of Moxon home made aerials, some he uses to good effect in the UKAC contests.

Paul M0PLA took his SOTA setup along whose furthest contact was to IO83XO WAB SD91 to Windy Hill G0KUY (Steve) 111 km’s away. Paul was using a Yaesu FT270 Handheld 5w to his vertically polarised 6 element homebrewed beam.

The whole evening was interesting and went by far too quickly. It attracting a couple at the end who showed interest and asked about the hobby. A very positive evening brought to an end only by losing the light and threatening rain clouds. Some members opted for a debrief in the nearby pub, The Hunstman, after.