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SSB Field Day - 1998

What does it take to win SSB Field Day ?

This is what we've been asking ourselves since we were 2nd in 1994. This year we think we've come up with the formula. It appears we have the highest number of QSOs ever made in this contest, and the highest points total. Here's the story...

Multipliers

Lichfield have taken this contest for the last 6 years and have always managed to work an amazing number of multipliers. So, first thing we had to improve was our spotting set up. Networked PCs and a shared log were a must, as well as a method of fast handover (we'll keep that one a trade secret !) for working spots. The main transceiver was an FT1000 with the second receiver disabled as specified in the rules (though, quite how the second receiver could be of any use when someone is calling CQ on the main transmitter is anyone's guess ! - and you're not going to win unless you are calling CQ most of the time, that's for sure). The spotters were hunting for multipliers on other bands the whole time, but we believe that Lichfield have still beaten us on multipliers. - How do they do that ??

In the Log

Conditions were obviously very good for a change, though 10 metres only opened up to DX for short periods. The DX just kept rolling in on 20m and 15m. 20 metres was open almost all night to the USA including a lot of west coast stations and even Hawaii. VK and ZL were coming through strongly in the morning (over 40 worked). 15 metres opened up for hours to Japan and Korea during the day especially near the end of the contest when we worked 60 in the last hour (170 JAs altogether). It helps having the All Asia contest on at the same time !

The New Site

A few weeks before the contest we found a way to get right to the edge of the escarpments that overlook Bath to the south east and Bristol to the west. With two beams we could cover 270degrees off the sides of the hills. In short - the site of our dreams. This is what it looked like from the main tower...

In the frame are (left to right) Stuart G0KDS, Dave G4NKT, Robin G3TKF and Colin G3YHV.

Antennas

As proved by the log, we had excellent DX take-off to all continents and all the antennas worked well. Although we have four element monoband beams available for 20m,15m an10m we went for the simpler option of two identical Cushcraft A3S Tribanders. One was at 60ft and the other at approx 80ft. Then there was the Cushcraft 2 ele 40m beam at about 50ft, a delta loop for 80m and wire dipoles for 40m, and 80m. As we were promised a gale for the weekend we didn't put the antennas up to full height. Luckily the gale didn't show up.

Look for the result in Feb 99 RADCOM!