Well, I’ve had a bit better luck in the February, March and April UKAC contests.
I’ve not made a great deal of contacts – compared to some – but I’m on the scoreboard nonetheless.
In Feb, I used the FT-817, but as that only puts out 5W (actually only 4, when I measured it into a dummy load), I didn’t do particularly well, managing only a dozen or so contacts.
So, for March and April, I have been using my IC-7100, allowing me to use the full ten watts allowed for QRP operation. That pushed my QSO count up into the low twenties and I been most pleased to manage some fairly distant contacts, such as Cornwall and another portable station up in JO03 square, giving me those much needed bonus points. Not bad, I think, for 10 Watts into an aerial made out of plastic pipe and an old aluminium clothes horse.
Finding a spot up on the Downs to operate from has become tricky, though. There seems to be a regular gathering of youngsters in their cars, taking up all the available parking spots. They give me strange looks as I set my aerial up on the grass verge and they are there all flippin’ night, too. I even saw pizza being delivered to them, last month!
Slinging the IC-7100 into the boot of the car – along with all the associated paraphenalia – was a bit of a mess and there was plenty of possibilities to get something wired up incorrectly in the dark, or lose a cable or something, so I decided I needed a tidier solution.
A Go Box seemed the obvious solution and the IC-7100 lends itself quite nicely to such an option – I’ve seen a couple of examples on the web. However, I didn’t fancy trying to squeeze everything in to such a thing… and also the price of flight cases put me off. All I need is something to keep it all together and make it easy to take in and out of the car boot.
And so, with a bit of chipboard from my daughter’s old wardrobe, I came up with the Go Board™
That’s it in the photo above. Works a treat, and cost next to nothing.
