Hi,
Well, Mr. Murphy sure got around this weekend.
When I got here the 40M dipole didn’t load up. I had a few days to experiment but despite climbing the 20M mast to swap coax (twice), nothing could be done, for reasons still unknown. I’m not a great climber but felt fairly secure using the harness and clips etc.
I didn’t bring any poles or wire and as the shack here was burnt to the ground two years ago hence spare equipment here is limited.
No worries I thought, I’ll just have to do without (trying to keep positive!). The main antenna here is an Optibeam 16 ele, 5 band, up high and was working very well. The only ATU was the internal IC-7610 which I know from previous experience struggles compared to a dedicated ATU or even the internal K3 ATU. (The K3 can load up my doublet at home I use for field day, the Icom cannot.)
Also I discoverd the linear was also destroyed in the fire so using 100W only.
On starting the contest all was well otherwise, I received some very complimentary signal reports from G despite the 100W.
All of a sudden about 2 or 3 hours in, 15M wouldn’t load up. (also 12M died so I suspect a common cause on the antenna).
At this point, having lost probably the two most useful bands, I lost my ‘mojo’ and realised this was going to be a ‘just for fun’ entry. The night time sessions are very slow, even when I have both 80 & 40M. With just a very noisy 80M dipole (S7+ noise) I couldn’t handle the thought of calling into the noise on just 80M for nearly 12 hours, (although 20M does open up to VK/ZL during the night for short periods). I therefore decided on a very casual entry, hour on, hour off etc. Apologies for not being there for UK sunrise.

10M opened up to VE, VK & ZL from here but alas no G’s.

From now on I will forget using a ‘renta shack’. My first two years ops from Belize were poles and wires etc over seawater and I did very well. I shall now go back to travelling with all the gear again, now the sun has woken up. At least I will only have myself to blame if the antennas don’t work as expected. I’m already looking for next years QTH, it wont be Belize as Ive been here for 5 years now, I fancy a change.

N1MM+ says 295 QSO’s, 8hrs on time, 3,475 points. (SOA-12hr) but only 100W.
A bit dissapointing to say the least but I had a good time nevertheless.

Band QSOs Pts Cty Sec Pt/Q
3.5 19 355 14 1 18.7
14 164 1850 49 5 11.3
21 78 805 19 1 10.3
28 23 465 18 1 20.2
Total 284 3475 100 8 12.2
Score: 3,475
1 Mult = 2.6 Q’s

Annoyingly, the 15M antenna suddenly starting working again the next day.. Mr. Murphy obvously went off to annoy someone else!

Iain V31GX/G4SGX