The third weekend of July saw around 25 members participate in our second annual field day, a chance to do some operating and play with antennas (oh, and drink some beer).

Emma 2E0LEH and Paul M0WPG again excelled, supplying the catering tent and all the cooking gear, and also their own gala tent which ‘mated’ closely with the Club’s tent.

Shown above is Dave M7IPY dealing very effectively with a pileup on 20m. Operating was relaxed, mainly on 20m and we ended the weekend with 343 QSOs with 58 different DXCC countries. In addition Toby, M0TBS made sixty QSOs in the 4m contest.

After weeks of heatwave, the weather took a turn for the worse. Although it was actually hot on Friday afternoon while we set up, we knew we were in for a soaking overnight and for much of Saturday.

The tents held up well and no equipment got wet. Seen above is the TET tribander on a 40ft tower, put up ‘gin pole’ style (actually a falling derrick). On an elevated site, the beam gave a very good account of itself and we enjoyed working eight VKs on 20m long path on Sunday morning.