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Camb-Hams DX Blog

After a decade of visiting the Scottish Islands, we’re heading to a different DXCC this year: the Isle of Man, GD.

Dates

With a shorter journey from Cambridgeshire this year, we’re aiming to complete it all in one day: leaving home around 6am on Saturday 4th May for a midday ferry crossing from Heysham, bringing us on to the island by early evening. Most of the rest of the day will be setting up – we don’t expect to be on air much on Saturday.

We will then be QRV through the week before dismantling the stations on Friday 10th May.

Stations

This year, we’re expecting a similar setup to before:

  • 4x HF stations covering 160m to 10m, with linear amplifiers developing up to 400W.
  • 6m, 4m and 2m will focus on SSB & MGM (datamodes), with skeds welcome via ON4KST chat, we plan to use the following QRGs:
    • 6m: meteor scatter using MSK144 on 50.285 MHz; FT-8 on 50.313 MHz.
    • 4m meteor scatter using FSK441/MSK144 on 70.174 MHz; FT-8 on 70.154 MHz (use ON4KST to request a different QRG if required).
    • 2m meteor scatter using FSK441/MSK144 on 144.365 MHz; JTMS on 144.184 MHz; FT-8 on 144.174 MHz.
  • 2m and 70cm satellites
  • SSB and video via the Es’hail-2 / QO-100 satellite

Here’s a sample of our equipment:

  • HF
    • Elecraft K3 transceivers
    • Icom IC-7300 transceiver
    • Elecraft KPA-500 amplifiers
    • Juma PA-1000 amplifier
    • 5B4AGN and DuneStar transmitting band-pass filters
    • Hexbeam for 20m – 10m
    • G4ERO homebrew 20m mono-band 3-ele yagi
    • 1/4 verticals and horizontal dipoles on 80, 60, 40 and 30m
    • Vertical dipoles on 17 and 15m
  • VHF 6m
    • Icom IC-7300
    • Elecraft KPA-500 linear
    • 6 element YU7EF wide spaced
  • VHF 4m
    • Icom IC-7300
    • 600W homebrew 6m/4m solid-state linear
    • 7 element YU7EF wide spaced
  • VHF 2m
  • Satellites
    • Icom IC-9700 transceiver
    • Wimo 2m & 70cm X-Quads
    • SSB Electronics Preamps
    • M1BXF antenna phasing switch
    • Yaesu G-5500 computer controlled rotator system (PCSat32)

Location Details

  • Maidenhead Square: IO74se
  • IOTA: EU-116
  • WAB: SC37