Mills 2016

Location

Saltford Brass Mill is situated on the banks of the River Avon in the village of Saltford, 5 miles west of the City of Bath in the South West of England. Its postal address is Saltford Brassmill, The Shallows, Saltford, BS31 3EY. However, there are some specific details that will be of interest to radio hams:

  • Lat/Long (Brassmill): 51.401219°,-2.451116°
  • IARU: IO81sj
  • IOTA: EU005 (UK Mainland)
  • WAB: ST66 – England

The Operation

So it's May and Mills on the Air is once again with us. Mills marks the start of the Clubs Special Event season. It presents its own special challenges but gives us an opportunity to ensure that equipment is available and operational, something that was to take us by surprise this year as you will see.

We have a new Special Events Manager this year, Mark M0SKV now handles our Special Events although historically this one has always been the province of one of our members, David G7BYN, who was taking a break having organised this event for more than 10 years, the last 4 years for the Club and prior to that as an independent operation with Don G0NQJ (sk)

David had very kindly allowed us to use the same Special Event callsign GB0SBM that he normally applied for and Andy G7KNA had made the application as Mark had only obtained his full licence allowing NoVs following the May 12 Advanced Exam.

Generator No. 1Never trust a generator by its coverGenerator No. 2

The event started with a bang, quite literally. John M6GTT along with Martin M0JEA, Mark M0SKV and Andy G7KNA were on site somewhere around 10:00 and had set up Johns caravan, the antenna and the generator which had been loaned by another Club member. Everything was ready, the genny was started and the switch mode PSU was turned on. At which point there was a rapid crackling and popping sound as incendiary sparks leapt from the back of the PSU – oops!

Fortunately the IC7000 had not been turned on at the time but the PSU was toast (to use a technical term). Consternation ensued, the genny was checked and to our horror was producing something in the region of 350V.

What now? Clearly we needed a new PSU but more importantly we couldn't plug the new PSU into the genny for fear of the same result. A second PSU was available but no second generator was on site. John M6GTT kindly volunteered to return home and bring his unit as a replacement, in the meantime there was some charge in the caravan, oops shack, leisure battery so that we could get on air in a limited fashion until the replacement genny was sourced.

The shack and antennaThe station operated by Martin M0JEA

Our station was reasonably simple, if slightly different from previous years:

  • 22A Switch mode power supply
  • Icom IC7000 multimode HF/VHF/UHF transceiver with external monitor and speaker
  • MFJ Manual ATU
  • 20m/40m fan dipole coax fed to a 4:1 balun at the feedpoint suspended in an inverted vee configuration with the feedpoint about 10m above ground
  • A 2m half wave dipole

On the Sunday we swapped out the 2m dipole for a 3 element beam but there was enough HF activity to make this more or less redundant.

Getting back to the Saturday, working on the shacks leisure battery we struggled with propagation for the first couple of hours with little or none inter-G working that we had hoped for. We switched around the bands and worked a number of European stations including Finland on 50MHz which was a first for all of us. Around 12:30 or so the UK started to be workable on 40m. After that it was reasonably good working around 55 stations throughout the afternoon.

During the day we were visited by Cyril G3XED our Club President who gave us lots of encouragement and advice and as the only fluent Morse operator decoded one or two Morse messages we came across. With no key or PC on site we were unable to respond in kind, or more accurately Cyril was unable to reply on our behalf.

Mark M0SKV operating GB0SBMCyril G3XED (left) with John M6GTT (right) and Jack (the dog)Martin M0JEA operating GB0SBM

Sunday followed a similar pattern with the early propagation favouring European contacts until around lunchtime when the inter-G came in. By the end of the weekend we had worked 106 stations including 19 GB Special Event Stations.

Logbook

GB0SBM – South Bristol ARC (Operating from Saltford Brassmill)

Date of Contact Time Station Worked Band or Freq (MHz) Mode TX RX Operator’s Name QTH IARU Locator Distance (km) Notes
RST No. RST No.
14/05/2016 10:12 PI4ZHE 14.193 SSB 59   59            
14/05/2016 10:16 9A70IA 20m SSB 59   59     Zagreb      
14/05/2016 10:26 GB1CWM 40m SSB 55   59            
14/05/2016 10:54 GB2MBB 40m SSB 55   55   Hans        
14/05/2016 11:04 SA7LOO/P 21.264 SSB 59   59            
14/05/2016 11:16 OH2FNR 50.15 SSB 59   59   Jake Finland      
14/05/2016 11:59 GB2RAF 40m SSB     58     Norfolk      
14/05/2016 12:03 G8HBS 7.165 SSB         Peter        
14/05/2016 12:06 DL8FQ 7.165 SSB 59   59   Rolf        
14/05/2016 12:10 M6MQZ/P 7.165 SSB 45   56            
14/05/2016 12:15 PA2EON 7.165 SSB 57   53            
14/05/2016 12:18 GB2WMS 7.165 SSB 59   59   Art        
14/05/2016 12:22 F4VPL/P 7.165 SSB 58   58   Dave Southern Brittany      
14/05/2016 12:26 GB1WML 7.165 SSB 59   59   Geoff       Home call G6YPJ
14/05/2016 12:34 GB1CWM 7.165 SSB 59   59   Tom        
14/05/2016 12:38 2M0WTN 7.165 SSB 57   57            
14/05/2016 12:42 M0MPT 7.165 SSB 59   59   Mike Southampton      
14/05/2016 12:52 G0GRI 7.165 SSB 59   59   Ian Bradford-on-Avon      
14/05/2016 12:55 M0TWB 7.165 SSB 59   59   Tony Blackburn      
14/05/2016 12:57 MX0VQJ 7.165 SSB 59   59   Geoff Holmpton      
14/05/2016 12:59 GB0SCW 7.165 SSB 59   59   Keith       Home call G1FBH
14/05/2016 13:02 2E0TGF 7.165 SSB 59   59   Alistair        
14/05/2016 13:04 G4OBE 7.165 SSB 59   59   Robert Enfield      
14/05/2016 13:05 G0HLL 7.165 SSB 59   59   Ron        
14/05/2016 13:07 GB1WW 7.165 SSB 57   57   John        
14/05/2016 13:09 G4RAC 7.165 SSB 59   59   John Burton-upon-Trent      
14/05/2016 13:11 GB2GG 7.165 SSB 59   59   Robin        
14/05/2016 13:16 G0WGP 7.165 SSB 59   59   Ron Brighton      
14/05/2016 13:20 M0RSD 7.165 SSB 59   59            
14/05/2016 13:21 G3PRI 7.165 SSB 59   59   Dave Bishops Stortford      
14/05/2016 13:24 2E0JEF 7.165 SSB 53       Jeff South East London      
14/05/2016 13:26 PA7GMU 7.165 SSB 59   59   Gerard Beist Netherlands      
14/05/2016 13:29 G0NBI 7.165 SSB 59   59   Graham Bromsgrove      
14/05/2016 13:32 EI2NCR/P 7.165 SSB 59   59   Ben        
14/05/2016 13:37 2W0KBO 7.165 SSB 59   59     Snowdonia      
14/05/2016 13:40 EI5DD 7.165 SSB 59   59   Steve Galway      
14/05/2016 13:44 F6AML 7.165 SSB 59   59   Sam South East Paris      
14/05/2016 13:45 2E0GHM 7.165 SSB 59   59   Graham Wirral      
14/05/2016 13:47 G0VEO 7.165 SSB 59   59   Russ Liverpool      
14/05/2016 13:50 G0KYB/M 7.165 SSB 59   59   Mike Morecombe Bay      
14/05/2016 13:56 GM4JYB 7.165 SSB 49   58   Brian        
14/05/2016 13:59 PI4WFL 7.165 SSB 59   59   Johan        
14/05/2016 14:01 2E0TWQ 7.165 SSB 58   55   John Great Yarmouth      
14/05/2016 14:04 G4NTN/M 7.165 SSB 59   59   Peter Norfolk      
14/05/2016 14:08 GB2ERW 7.165 SSB 59   59   Ken        
14/05/2016 14:17 MM0GGI 7.165 SSB 59   59   John Sutherland      
14/05/2016 14:20 G0FVH 7.165 SSB 59   59            
14/05/2016 14:36 PE4BAS 7.165 SSB 59   57   Bas        
14/05/2016 14:42 MM6FCN/P 7.165 SSB 44                
14/05/2016 14:46 PE1KXY/P 7.165 SSB 57   58            
14/05/2016 14:48 PA4MRS 7.165 SSB 57   55   Martin        
14/05/2016 14:51 DL1BSH 7.165 SSB 58   58   Frank        
14/05/2016 14:56 PA6MILL 7.165 SSB 56       Peter       QRM/QSB
14/05/2016 15:02 GI4CBG 7.165 SSB 57   59   Ray Belfast      
14/05/2016 15:05 GM6KON 7.165 SSB 59   59   Tom John O’Groats      
15/05/2016 10:22 PE2HF 7.149 SSB 59                
15/05/2016 10:24 MI0TMW 7.149 SSB 56   57            
15/05/2016 10:29 DF9OO 7.149 SSB 59   59     Hanover      
15/05/2016 10:31 PA2NJC 7.149 SSB 57   59   Nick South East Netherlands      
15/05/2016 10:36 M6TEP/P 7.149 SSB 55       Tracey Westbury Wiltshire      
15/05/2016 10:43 PA1MV 7.149 SSB 55   57            
15/05/2016 10:48 SK6NP 7.149 SSB 44   59            
15/05/2016 10:52 DK8EQ 7.149 SSB 56   58   Uli        
15/05/2016 10:59 HB9FEG 7.149 SSB 45   47   Jakob        
15/05/2016 11:04 PA3GSA 7.149 SSB                  
15/05/2016 11:06 PA1AT 7.149 SSB 58   59   Terry        
15/05/2016 11:22 F4VRE 7.149 SSB 45   57   Stephen La Rochelle      
15/05/2016 11:33 G3PXT 7.149 SSB 57   59   Gordon        
15/05/2016 11:34 HB9BQR 7.149 SSB 57   58   Roland        
15/05/2016 11:36 G8HBS 7.149 SSB 44   59   Julian        
15/05/2016 11:43 PE7URK 7.149 SSB 57   59   Peter Urk      
15/05/2016 11:50 PE1ECO/P 7.149 SSB 47   59   Hans        
15/05/2016 12:30 F8KHU/P 7.149 SSB 59   59            
15/05/2016 13:04 HB9OK/P 7.149 SSB 59   59   Claudia        
15/05/2016 13:07 G7ENA 7.143 SSB 59   59   Daphne Louth Lincolnshire      
15/05/2016 13:14 F4GZU 7.143 SSB 59   59   Michael        
15/05/2016 13:19 GB0KLM 7.143 SSB 55   59   Tim Pennines      
15/05/2016 13:24 2E0EBM 7.143 SSB 59   59   Bob Essex      
15/05/2016 13:30 GB2WTM 7.143 SSB 59   59   David Suffolk      
15/05/2016 13:35 G0XTA 7.143 SSB 59   59   Ray Cambridgeshire      
15/05/2016 13:43 G0MGU 7.143 SSB 59   58   Colin        
15/05/2016 13:49 GB2TMI 7.143 SSB 59   59   Robert Leeds      
15/05/2016 13:56 GB0HSM 7.143 SSB 59   59   Pete        
15/05/2016 14:00 GB0SIU 7.143 SSB 57   59   Brian Shoreham by Sea      
15/05/2016 14:05 M0ZSS 7.143 SSB 59   59   Mark        
15/05/2016 14:07 GB2WWM 7.143 SSB 59   59   John Leicester      
15/05/2016 14:16 2E0EII 7.143 SSB 59   59   John Leicester      
15/05/2016 14:19 GB0SM 7.143 SSB 59       Mike Kingston-upon-Hull      
15/05/2016 14:23 GB2PW 7.143 SSB 59   59   Tony        
15/05/2016 14:28 G3TGB 7.143 SSB 59   59   Brian Braintree      
15/05/2016 14:31 G4TZX 7.143 SSB 59   59   Gordon Rodney Marsh      
15/05/2016 14:33 G0RKT 7.143 SSB 59   59   David Busckstone Derbyshire      
15/05/2016 14:36 GB8WW 7.143 SSB 57   57   Peter Ashford Kent      
15/05/2016 14:39 GB2WM 7.143 SSB 58       Ian Sandwich Kent      
15/05/2016 14:42 M0BJX 7.143 SSB 56       Robert Middlesborough      
15/05/2016 14:45 G7HNG 7.143 SSB 59       Andy Chesterfield      
15/05/2016 14:49 GB2ERW 7.143 SSB 59   59   Barry East Runton Cromer      
15/05/2016 14:55 G4NYC 7.143 SSB 59   59   Jerry        
15/05/2016 14:59 GJ3WMR 7.143 SSB         Frank Jersey      
15/05/2016 15:02 G7SYW 7.143 SSB 58   59   Roger Exeter      
15/05/2016 15:04 M1EQA 7.143 SSB 55   59   Nigel Falmouth      
15/05/2016 15:07 DK2AY 7.143 SSB 59   59   Brand North Germany      
15/05/2016 15:11 GJ7LJJ 7.143 SSB 55   58   Nigel        
15/05/2016 15:16 PE1OCC 7.143 SSB 58   57   Philip        
15/05/2016 15:20 M0RBM 7.143 SSB 59   58   Rodney Bude      
15/05/2016 15:23 DL0DF 7.143 SSB 59   59   Joerg Witten