The weather forecast was grim for this year's UHF Contest, with gales and floods of rain forecast. In the event the wind was not too bad, so the mast was fully extended until mid Sunday morning, and then dropped a few feet as the wind speed increased. It was wet though, but this gave some good RS conditions on the higher bands on Sunday.

Most operation on 432MHz was from 0700z to 1000z on Sunday. DL0GTH were consistently audible with loud signals, and were worked along with DR9A without difficulty.Other QSO's over 600km were DL0TS (JO50), F6ANW (JN06), DO3BST (JO51), DL7ANR (JO62), and then the last QSO of the contest with OK2A (JO60) at 827km

Numbers of contacts on 1.3GHz were down on last year. At the start of the contest I wondered if I had an antenna fault as I could not detect PI7ALK at all, and normally audible beacons were very weak. As tropo was very poor, it was down to aircraft scatter to provide all the DX. The very first QSO was DF4IAO (JN48) at 731km so the system was working fine. Other DX over 600km included DR9A (JN48), DL0GTH (JO50), OZ7Z (JO44), DL4EAU (JO41), DJ6OL (JO52), DR5T (JN47), DH3NAN (JO50), F6ANW (JN06), and best DX OK2A (JO60) at 827km.

2.3GHz was rather better than expected, again aircraft scatter was needed to work any DX. Aircraft scatter contacts over 500km were DR9A (JN48), DK1PZ (JO41), DL0GTH (JO50), Dl3IAE (JN49), DL3IAS (JN49).

3.4GHz activity was a bit lower, best DX was DL0GTH (JO50), DK2FD(JO32), DL3IAE (JN49)

5.7GHz was still out in the cold as far as activity was concerned, best DX over 400km were DH8AF (JO32) and DL3IAE (JN49). DL0GTH was heard well but not completed.

10GHz benefited from some good RS on Sunday morning into PA0 and DL, with a pile up at one stage. Best DX was a very nice contact with Daniel DL3IAE (JN49) at 588km.

For the first time I was QRV on 24GHz with 3W to a 48cm dish. The only contact was Phil G0JBA (JO01) at 89km, but very welcome. This was by rain scatter. A test with PI4Z was negative but they were not sure of their antenna pointing in the strong winds.

73

John G3XDY

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