SATURDAY EVENING ->MIDNIGHT

The evening was dogged by one small problem - light....or lack of....

The hangar was light enough to work in during the day, but night would soon be upon us, and we had no light! - Luckily we had been donated a few anglepoise lamps, and a few holders on cables - Stephen and Simon rigged them up, and got them working, and we were in business...There was only one minor issue, or it was a major issue to some of the team - and that was food...

(Adrian, working HF)

Adrian had kindly nipped out a few hours earlier, and come back laden with most of the local McD's - but we weren't in the mood for more McD's, and so a visit to the local chippy/Spar  was in order - between myself, James and Stephen we assembled a list - and off we went...

Stephen and James nipped out into the chippy, and then James disappeared to the local convenience store - He'd decided to play "see how much food I can carry without a basket !" :) - Suffice to say, if there were 5000 people involved, we'd have had no trouble whatsoever. I had a 7-tonner on standby just in case ! On returning to the camp - we dished out the food, and no radio was played while the eating was in progress :)

Ian and Malcolm paid us a visit not long after we'd eaten, and we discussed how well the WHO station had done, and Ian took a few photos of us in the hangar, and a few of the planes...We chatted for about half an hour and then as quickly as they'd arrived - they disappeared....

We all watched as the sun disappeared behind the hills, the lights came on, and it was kind of eerie in the hangar, there was just us, some planes, some radios, and out there was nearly half a mile of wire, and the rest of the world (now I am getting a bit weird) - we worked our way along the bands, 20,40,and then 80 and then pretty much anywhere else where we could make ourselves heard - We would have given collective body parts for a Kenwood 922 amp (2KW out anyone ??) - We had this kind of fighting spirit between us, that meant we'd do anything to have really made noise on the bands - Stephens 102 was holding up nicely - I had enquired before we set up as to whether the 102 would last being run for 24 hours - Stephen assured me it would, that was fine - I didn't want any equipment casualties.

Although a few hours passed, it seemed we got a lot done - I put James and Simon in front of HF and VHF, and they did quite well - I just had to convince them not to go near the repeaters, as the repeater contacts wouldn't count, and plus we were in a good enough spot to make some decent simplex contacts! - There were a few people on this late, which doesn't surprise me, you can find people on 2M well into the early morning..

                                                                   (James working 2M)

Stephen and Adrian between them worked HF1, and seemed to be working quite a lot of stations - Stephen manged to work a US station, who happened to have a young (about 6) daughter who was also licenced - and so Steve talked to her as well, He seemed quite chuffed by the experience!!

It was also getting a bit chilly in the hangar - we all wrapped up warm, and got the kettle on, the next few hours would prove to be very long - and then Stephen (ZMD) appeared armed with pizza! - This went down well with the Chocolate Digestives and Hob-Nobs and Lucozade - Don't think I could have slept if I'd have tried....

I tried UI-View - but it was empty - so I switched off VHF and worked HF from HF2 and worked a few stations....

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