Galleywood Field Day 08 July 2018

Essex Ham’s 15th field day of the year took place on Sunday the 8th of July 2018 – and probably takes the record for being the hottest yet at a peak of 28 degrees.

Not that we need an excuse to get out and play radio, but the reason for today’s activation was the RSGB VHF National Field Day. This was a 24-hour event, and to be fair, we were there just to be a part of it for the last three hours and to give away some points to those who took the event far more seriously. Here are some of the stations that we worked on 2m SSB:

M0SNB, G8BGV, G0FBB, G4ZAP, G5LK, M0HRF ,G0PEK, ON4PRA and G0SAC, 

As well as 2m, Charlie M0PZT was active on 4m with a basic dipole, and when 4m was exhausted, the 4m dipole was dropped down, and a 5-element Yagi took over from the Slim Jim for a much better result on 2m.

After 3pm local time, the VHF field day was at an end. 2m stayed active with Dorothy in the very hot seat, which Charlie was in pile-up mode on 40m on his icom ic-7300 (out for its first /P outing) and Andrew M6ONH was busy on 20m working Belarus, Poland, Russia, the Canary Islands and a few other places.

We had a last-minute change of venue from the normal Horse & Groom Pub location, to the main Galleywood Common car park, as there was a car show taking place close to the pub. Makes a change to try going back to our original “old favourite”, which ticks the boxes for Richard G7OED as there are more PokeStops!

A good turn-out of around a dozen amateurs trying new things, chatting about filters and radios, and enjoying the sun. We were visited by a couple who were interested in weather satellite tracking, and hopefully, have piqued their interest in amateur radio.

With the help of a little lift, we picked up a few stations from Belgium sending SSTV to the UK. The following was captured on 144.500MHz using a smartphone SSTV app held up to the headphones.

A great day in the sun. Thanks to everyone who turned up, or took the time to work the station.