June 2012
Issue 75
Welcome to the June edition of BP.
Well well, I know its customary for us Brits to talk about the weather; but what a washout the past few weeks have been! The ensuing chaos and misery caused by mother nature is quite remarkable; and it seems that the never ending deluge is showing no signs of mercy!
My sympathies to the inhabitants of the towns that have suffered during this onslaught! It seems that nature heeded the cries of farmers and counties within our island with a vengence!
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Lets take a look at reports received this month.
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From Erkki OH7QR
Hello Robert,
I hope you are well and enjoying the summertime.
Attached is my log for June Ladder. I worked only on 20M, on other bands I had no success.
73 de Erkki OH7QR # 8318
Hello Erkki. Regarding the summertime; I was considering buying a canoe to help with my commuting as I received your email Hi Hi..
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From Grham G3ZOD
Hi Rob.
The 10th June Ladder sessions went very well, including a QSO with GX2FKO # 15870 (Appledore and District Amateur Radio Club operated by Mike G4NCU #6061). Mike kindly put on GX2FKO for some days during Counties Week. The 24th June sessions were difficult due to the propagation on 40m going "long", making it very difficult for QSOs with other English stations. However, in the evening on 80m I was more than compensated with my first ever QSO with Ian G4MLW #130 and a very long chat with Neil MW0ECX #15508. About 2 minutes before the end of the evening session, I was in the process of closing down but had left the radio on 3.558 and heard John EI6DN calling CQ, resulting an unexpected bonus QSO.
73 de Graham G3ZOD
Hello Gra. Good to hear from you, nice of Mike to air the Appledore club call, handn’t heard Mike on air for some time, but pleased to know he’s still active.
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From Peter G0TLU
Hi Rob, Hope you are well.
After quite a good first session I thought I would be beating my personal best this month, but I found condx very difficult on the second Sunday. Made 1 QSO on 20m with Erkki with 599 both ways, but when I moved down to 40 the band seemed in very poor shape. I only managed 1 QSO there, and that was with a non-member (DL2IAD, Willi) so only 3 points for the day. Oh well, that's the way it goes!
73, Pete G0TLU
Hi Peter. Good to hear from you. Yes, 40 was “interesting” many had problems during the month, looking at your log the 1 st session was a good result.
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From Phil 2E0DPH
Hello Rob,
Hope you are well, here is my log for the June Ladder Activity. The second Sunday proved very interesting with conditions on 40m very poor indeed, still I think it is good to be challenged from time to time. At least the later part of the afternoon session improved just a bit .Thanks to those I managed to work.
Hope to see you again next month.
73 Phil 2E0DPH Fists 14543
Hello Phil. Not too bad here thanks. Hope all well your way? As you’ve no doubt seen 40 was a poor show during the month, lets hope condx improve later in the year.
An excellent score nevertheless.
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From Derek M0DRK
Hi Robert,
Here is my log for the June Ladder. Had a nice start to the month on my first session on the 10th of June. Very pleased to work Mike G4NCU with his own call and also the club station GX2FKO which Mike was operating.Good to work that club station with it's Fists Nr 15870.
Then eveything went rather strange for my next session two weeks later. A completely blank sheet I'm afraid. a few stations were heard deep in the noise and I couldn't make myself heard by those that I did hear. Then in came Mollie to say that we now have visitors. Tried again in the late session but things were no better.So then I went to watch England play in 2012 euro.on TV. This completed a day of non- success hi. Never mind. Hope all OK with you Robert, Mollie and I both well. Take care, see you next month.
73 for now Derek, M0DRK, Fists 8344.
Hello Derek. Another who fell foul of the condx on 40. A day day of non success on two counts. I do hope the visitors were more entertaining than both 40m and the football? Hi Hi..
As ever, regards to Mollie and yourself. Look forward to hearing from you next month.
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And From Darren G0OTT
Hi Robert,
Please find my attached activity on June ladder.
I am glad I attended both sessions on the first Sunday, nice to work everyone, bonus with Clive airing his GQ call :) nice for the Prefix 3 award.
On the second Sunday I tried both sessions with no luck whatsoever, someone pulled the plug on inter G and most of Europe on 40/20m!
Had to check my aerials to see if they were broken!
I hope both the conditions and weather improve for the July ladder sessions.
Regards Darren G0OTT
Hi Darren. Good to hear from you. When changing the ladder “Rules” sometime ago, I’d decided that the four session arrangement would cater for unforseen circumstances; i.e. contest activity, home duties, band condx etc. But if members were at liberty to switch on and participate in all four sessions; they could choose the highest scores for two! In your case this month, the rule has proved fruitful for yourself! An excellent score!
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From Peter G4LHI
Hello Robert,
I attach my claim & report for Activity Ladder June 2012.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Ladder as always, but Im sure there will be a lot of mention of the terrible conditions on the 24th, I was very relieved when I found others were also having problems, at first I thought it was a problem with my rig or antenna hi.
Thank you very much for those that did manage to get through the conditions, tough going at times, but we managed a few. Sorry to those that did call me & I did not hear better luck in July.
For June I had 18 QSO’s for 33 points so can’t grumble!
Keep bashing the brass & good hunting to you all, & most of all have fun whatever the conditions!.
73 de Peter G4LHI # 2219
Hello Peter. As ever, good to hear from you. Yet another one who looked out of the window, or wandered out to the garden to see if the aerials were still there! Hi Hi..
You certainly weren’t alone!
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From Geoff G0DDX
Rob,
Here is my Ladder entry for this month.
It was nice to work John G4OYC for the first time.
Again not one of my best scores, and the conditions last Sunday were appalling. I could barely hear Phil 2E0DPH, and he live only 25 miles away! We had to resort to 2 metres to make the contact.
I was 529 with Peter G4LHI who is only 14 miles away. Usually, both are 599+
My QRP 5W just didn't stand a chance at all. Never mind, there is always another day. Let's face it, its a hobby, and I'm not getting paid by the QSO!
Over the last year I have been playing with various versions of the Miracle Whip style of antenna to use with my FT817. I finally made one that actually works! It covers 160-10 Metres. 
Its a 1.5m whip, and a L-Match inside the box. I had great difficulty making the autotransformer type give the coverage that I wanted. This one worked almost straight away, and only needed a little tweaking to get it to work quite well.
It consists of approx 65uH for the inductor (tapped at various points and shorted out with a 12 way switch for the different bands), and a 140+60pF polyvaricon Capacitor from "Spratreader" on Ebay. The additional 60pf is switchable so I can add it in if necessary. These capacitors have short shafts, but a piece of tubular plastic PCB spacer and a long M2.5 screw soon gave me a decent shaft to secure the knob onto.
If you only want 80-10metres then only about 30uH is needed.
It certainly works OK. However I am not expecting full dipole performance from a 1.5m Whip. However its compact, it works, and it cost me less than £20. Its certainly kept me busy for quite a while playing about with it.
The real test will be using it when I go on holiday!
Hopefully even do a Ladder Sunday when on Holiday with it, if the dates coincide.
I'm looking forward to doing a bit better next month on the ladder.
Best Regards Geoff G0DDX #15552
Hello Geoff. A nice piece of kit! Thanks for sharing it with us, I do hope that a holiday will cross with a ladder session for evaluation; and for £20 can’t complain! Personally, I’m always a little concerned if myself and John, M0CDL are attending a rally; if we both open our wallets together, the room suddenly fills with moths! And we can’t understand why! HiHi..
As you’ve quite rightly pointed out, it is a hobby, most of all it should be enjoyed. Look forward to hearing from you next month.
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Thanks to Dennis K6DF, FISTS Awards Manager, for the following information.
June 2012 FISTS Awards
Congratulations to the following members:
Ian G4MLW #130 Gold Century
Gene AA8MI #914 Basic Century
Colin G0XCF #2296 Basic Century
Rien PA7RA #9819 Basic Century
Gene W5GXV #11347 Millionaire 19 Million Sticker
Russ K0LUW #12117 Prefix Version 1, Prefix Version 2 and Millionaire 25 Million Sticker.
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Time to look at the results table for June.
| CALL | JAN | FEB | MAR | APR | MAY | JUNE | JULY | AUG | SEPT | OCT | NOV | DEC | TOTALS |
| G4LHI | 36 | 36 | 44 | 46 | 40 | 33 | 235 | ||||||
| 2E0DPH | 29 | 30 | 44 | 27 | 32 | 31 | 193 | ||||||
| G0OTT | 24 | 31 | 32 | 37 | 27 | 31 | 182 | ||||||
| OH7QR/OG9R | 31 | 25 | 30 | 23 | 6 | 27 | 142 | ||||||
| M0DRK | 23 | 20 | 29 | 26 | 15 | 16 | 129 | ||||||
| G0DDX | 20 | 25 | 29 | 0 | 7 | 16 | 97 | ||||||
| G3ZOD | 8 | 19 | 10 | 18 | 6 | 16 | 77 | ||||||
| M5ABN | 27 | 31 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 69 | ||||||
| G0TLU | 0 | 0 | 15 | 10 | 9 | 14 | 48 | ||||||
| 2E0JCY | 0 | 0 | 18 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 32 | ||||||
| G0DUB | 12 | 6 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 29 | ||||||
| G0ANV | 8 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 28 | ||||||
| DL4FDM | 0 | 17 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 25 | ||||||
| CN2JV | 4 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | ||||||
| SQ5RIX | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | ||||||
| SA0AAZ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6 | ||||||
| MX5IPX © | 3 | 11 | 3 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 56 | ||||||
| GX3ZQS © | 0 | 12 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 22 | ||||||
| GX0IPX © | 0 | 0 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
That’s all from the stable of M0BPT for yet another month.
With CME’s taking their toll over the past month, condx were less than fruitful for some; but congratulations to those who soldiered on and achieved some impressive scores!
I've included this edition once again in pdf and MS Word document format downloads;
Until next time;
Keep well
Keep pounding brass!
73.
M0BPT
VA