The weather forecast was not very promising for the weekend, with heavy rain and strong winds forecast. However, conditions were not as bad as I had feared, with good signals on 1.3GHz from Germany and the Czech Republic, and some rainscatter assistance for contacts on 5.7 and 10GHz.

As usual I intended to concentrate on 1.3 and 2.3GHz on Saturday for the UK Trophy contests, and then look on 432MHz and concentrate on 3.4 - 10GHz on the Sunday. In practice I ended up spending a lot more time than expected on making higher band contacts on the Saturday, which probably restricted the scores on 1.3 and 2.3GHz.

There was some enhancement at the start of the UK event, with strong signals on the back of the 1.3GHz beam as I looked to the East, and in the first few minutes three stations in JO52 were in the log. I was then kept busy with multiband QSOs for some time and did not actively use KST until later on Saturday evening when the pace slackened a little. DL0GTH in JO50 was the best DX on 23cm in this period, and we exchanged signals on 2.3GHz but the aircraft reflection did not last long enough for a complete contact. Time pressure on the big stations in areas of high activity means they don't want to spend 10 minutes or more waiting for a plane to arrive in the right place, so these DX contacts are difficult to complete in the early hours of a contest. Nino DL3IAS patiently provided the best DX on 2.3GHz during the Trophy contest period.

Late on Saturday conditions seemed to peak up into northern France, with F1PYR/P loud on all bands from 1.3GHz - 10GHz, but I could not find any other F stations to work.

On the Sunday I made a few search and pounce contacts on 432MHz, but the band sounded very quiet here, with very little activity evident from Holland. DR9A was a consistent signal from JN48 and I found stations up as far as 432.340, but lots of white noise. Despite spending some time listening, nothing was heard from France south of IN97/JO27.

1.3GHz was working well to the East on Sunday, the QSO with Matej at OK2A (JO60) was complete in 30 seconds, and he was consistently audible on tropo for long periods. Other DX stations included DK0NA, DH9NFM (JO50), DL3JAN, OK1KIR (JO60), DF0MTL, DM5D (JO61), DF5GZ/P (JN47), DL7QY (JN59) mostly on aircraft reflection. The best DX on 2.3GHz with DK0NA was also by aircraft reflection and took a bit of patience, but there were few new stations to try 2.3GHz with on the Sunday.

3.4GHz seemed to be a few dB down on both receive and transmit, so will need to be checked. Signals were exchanged with DK0ZB (JO42) but not enough for a QSO.

5.7GHz benefited from some RS enhancement at times, but no real DX was worked. A reasonable haul of 10GHz stations was achieved, again with some rain scatter assistance.

The wind speed on Sunday morning here was peaking over 70km/h, so I'm glad I added extra guys to the tower again this year.

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