Not a very good night at the Martello Tower

Last night was the April 144MHz RSGB UKAC contest and as usual we were at the Martello Tower to take part.

Things started off slowly with only 15 stations or so worked in the first half an hour with just two of those being given a genuine five-nine report.  Signals were generally much lower than usual.

About an hour in, a nasty static noise appeared which completely wiped out the whole band for nearly an hour.  It tied in with very heavy rain but there was no sign of a thunderstorm, it just rained a lot.  It didn’t matter which way we beamed, the noise was there and we had no chance of making any QSOs through it.

After an hour or so it slowly cleared and the band was much more lively than before although we noticed very heavy QSB.  Our final score was significantly lower than usual.

I took some quick videos during the noise and combined them together on YouTube – Here they are.

2 Comments

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  1. Hi Keith, Almost certainly static rain. Some antennas fair better than others with this phenomenom. My Cushcrafts experience it, but not as badly as your video. Not sure if you are still using the LFA antenna, but thaese are supposed to minimise the effect.

    73 Bob G8HGN

    1. Nope, we’re using my old 9 element Vargarda now. I never noticed that when I had it up here, it was really strange.

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