For 2018, sees the return of the Camb-Hams to the Island of Islay which lies 120Km west of Glasgow and just southwest of Jura.
Timings
After a stop-over in Dumbarton on Friday 11th May, catching up with local amateurs and breaking the journey, we headed to Kennacraig for the ferry to Islay. We’re hoping to be operational properly on Sunday 13th May.
We will then be QRV through the week before dismantling the stations on Friday 18th.
Stations
This year, we’re expecting a similar setup to before:
- 4-6 HF stations covering 160m to 10m, most with linear amplifiers developing up to 400W.
- 6m, 4m and 2m will focus on datamodes, with skeds welcome via ON4KST chat:
- 6m meteor scatter: 50.285 MHz; FT-8 50.313 MHz
- 4m metoer scatter and FT-8 – ON4KST for skeds.
- 2m meteor scatter: 144.365 MHz; FT-8 144.174 MHz
- 2m and 70cm satellites
Here’s a sample of our equipment:
- HF
- 5 Elecraft K3 transceivers
- Icom IC-7300 transceiver
- Icom IC-7610 transceiver
- 6 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, 40 and 30m
- Vertical dipoles on 17 and 15m
- VHF 6m
- Elecraft K3 transciever
- Yaesu VL-1000 “Quadra” 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
- Icom IC-910 transceiver
- M1BXF Homebrew 1.25Kw SSPA
- 17 element Tonna (no elevation control)
- DG8 preamp
- Satellites
- Icom IC-910 transceiver
- Wimo 2m & 70cm X-Quads
- SSB Electronics Preamps
- Yaesu G-5500 computer controlled rotator system (PCSat32)
Location Details
- Maidenhead Square: IO65VS
- IOTA: EU-008 ‘Inner Hebrides’
- WAB: NR36
Takeoff
In the past, especially Arran, we didn’t have the best location for VHF. This year however the opposite is true.
Here is the horizon, as seen from 40ft up at the cottage (note the upper orange line is 1deg);
Using ‘SRTM Path Profile’ this is what the coverage looks like for an HT at 2m above ground, bodes well for beams at 40ft.
