Contesting Archives

Contesting achievements in 2025

The end of 2025 signified 10 years of contesting since I rekindled my contesting activities since the 1990s. Over these 10 years I have been working hard to achieve good results and do the best I could. Additionally, the Hereford Amateur Radio Society has embraced contesting from 1.8MHz to 24 GHz. So below are some of the main highlights of my (and the club) contesting achievements in 2025.

Personal results.

Practical Wireless 144MHz QRP Contest.
2025 marked my 5th consecutive win in this event, which has not been done before and also my 10th in total, also not been done before.
You will notice 2020 is missing. That was the Covid year and whilst I did enter that (and did acheive a much higher score than the ‘winner’) I mistakenly thought that as it was an exceptional year as we were not allowed to go portable we were allowed to use KST chat. After the event I realised this was incorrect and owned up to being in KST to the adjudicator. UNLIKE the ‘winner’ who was ALSO in KST against the rules. I know because I saw them there but he never owned up like myself.
BTW, I enter PW QRP as Hereford VHF Contest Groups as that is what we called ourselves in 1990.

Year	Winner	Callsign
2016	Hereford VHF Contest Group	GW1YBB/P
2017	Hereford VHF Contest Group	GW1YBB/P
2018	Hereford VHF Contest Group	GW1YBB/P
2019	Hereford VHF Contest Group	GW1YBB/P
2021	Hereford VHF Contest Group	GW1YBB/P
2022	Hereford VHF Contest Group	GW1YBB/P
2023	Hereford VHF Contest Group	GW1YBB/P
2024	Hereford VHF Contest Group	GW1YBB/P
2025	Hereford VHF Contest Group	GW1YBB/P

RSGB 144MHz Backpackers.
Again, 2025 signalled my 5th consecutive win in section 3B. Again, 2020 and Covid messed things up. Initially the VHFCC said, as we were in lock-down, that the Backpackers Trophy would not be awarded. When we were allowed out portable I did some VHF Championship events for Hereford club instead. And then found out that the trophy HAD in fact been awarded and this was won by Andrew G4XZL who won the 2 events that were able to run. Normally it is the best 3 from 5 events. I was a bit miffed the VHFCC moved the goalposts, but now I am well used to that! I have won 9 of the 17 section 3B Backpackers since it started.

Year	Winner	Score
2009	GW4IDF/P	2733
2010	GW4RWR/P	3000
2011	GW4RWR/P	3000
2012	G4XZL/P	2877
2013	GW4RWR/P	3000
2014	G(W)4XZL/P	3000
2015	G(W)4XZL/P	3000
2016	GW1YBB/P	3000
2017	GW1YBB/P	3000
2018	GW1YBB/P	3000
2019	GW1YBB/P	3000
2020	G4XZL/P	2000
2021	GW1YBB/P	3000
2022	GW1YBB/P	3000
2023	GW1YBB/P	3000
2024	GW1YBB/P	3000
2025	GW1YBB/P	3000

ARRL RTTY RoundUp 2025.
RTTY is quite new to me as although I did get it going once on 80m for the RSGB CC series in 2017 I haven’t been on it since and now I am amazed I ever did before. I had an absolute nightmare of a job setting this up at the end of 2024 and had to walk away a few times. My woes are detailed here.
I persevered thankfully and had a few small goes from home at the end of the year. But once I had a working home setup I was able to use that as a known platform to setup and test a portable setup at home ready for 2025. So for this contest I went to a fantastic location with a borrowed 3 band dipole. The contest is a 5 band contest with no single band section so I was limiting myself to 3/5th of scoring opportunities but that did give me the excuse to have down time and re-charging time when the high bands stopped working. As this was my first proper go at an RTTY contest I was delighted to win my section. It’s fair to say my QRP pond is quite small but equally true to say I was second in the world and the only 3 band station in top 5.

Better than first loser in the World was setting an all time DX record (entire World outside USA) for the section.
This qualified me for a wall plaque trophy!

CQ WPX RTTY 2025.
Enjoying the RTTY contesting I took the gamble again that a QRP station in a great spot could again survive in a busy contest like CQ WPX. I found in ARRL Roundup I could squeeze in amongst all the louder signals. WPX does have single band sections so I chose to do 15m as it is reliable as a rule and I could easily mod my wire moxon to suit. 15m also closes so that is nice for a break and recharge batteries, for radio and mine! Though RTTY is very civilised operating as I was able to eat and drink while working pileups at the same time! Love it.
The ‘pond’ was slightly bigger in this section and I was delighted to be World winner:

Even better my score was a new World all time record! Woohoo. Another wall plaque!

CQ WW RTTY 2025.
The CQ WW contests are the biggest of the year so I was keen to try again with a good effort. This time I went for an aluminium tube 15m moxon which is actually my G1YBB design 15/10/6m 2 ele on each but I ditched the 10m and 6m elements. Again I banked on a superb location launching my little signal into the ether far and wide. CQ WW in fact….literally.
As I write the results are not yet out but barring a disaster on adjudication the raw scores are showing me leading a quite small World pond:
Also the current all time section record is 265,457 pts so I am keeping the fingers crossed!

Hereford Amateur Radio Society results.

RSGB VHF Championship.
This is a year long series of individual contests that all go towards a league table like overall championship. There are two trophies available to win for the VHF Championship, the affiliated society (AFS) and the Open. AFS is scored by all club members scores going into the pot and the Open section is just the best score for the club or group, typically larger groups operating portable.
Hereford have previously won the AFS Trophy 5 years in a row, the only club to do this:

VHF Championship AFS Trophy

2025	HEREFORD ARS
2024	CHESHAM & DARS
2023	HEREFORD ARS
2022	HEREFORD ARS
2021	HEREFORD ARS
2020	HEREFORD ARS
2019	HEREFORD ARS
2018	HARWELL ARS
2017	HARWELL ARS

In 2024 we didn’t have any many out for these weekend contests, we’ve been winning a lot for several years and now really have only the core members entering. We were actually leading until the last weekend which was the 1.2GHz and 2.3GHz Trophy contests. With no entrants on 2.3GHz and only Clive G8LNR out for 1.3GHz Chesham picked up two 1000point wins and beat us.
For 2025 we decided that was not acceptable and made a renewed effort to regain top spot. Which we did:
Not only that in 2024 I noticed that we were also leading the Open section until the last weekend where Colchester getting two 1000point wins mean they overtook us, so for 2025 I was determined to see if we could win this one too.
Which we did:
No club or contest group has won both sections before. Not bad for a genuine local club with actual local members going to club meetings. Not bad at all.

Practical Wireless 70MHz Contest.
As I do like to support the PW contests as my first ever contest was PW 144MHz QRP in 1990 I have also been entering the PW 70MHz contest in the Low Power section. I have won the Low Power section for 5 consecutive years from 2018-2022. However in 2023 I couldn’t make it due to holiday commitments so I asked Wayne MW0LKX if he fancied taking up my slack. Wayne rose to the occasion as I knew he would and won the Low power section. And in 2024 and 2025. So that means Hereford ARS members have won the PW 70MHz Low Power section for 8 consecutive years:

Year	Winner
2018	GW1YBB/P
2019	GW1YBB/P
2020	GW1YBB/P
2021	GW1YBB/P
2022	GW1YBB/P
2023	MW0LKX/P
2024	MW0LKX/P
2025	MW0LKX/P

Also of note is the club also came 2nd in 2017 operating from the club HQ at Geoff G8BPN’s QTH. And also that both myself and Wayne have had higher scores in the Low Power section than the winners of the Open section. Also in 2022 Hereford won the Low Power AND the Open section with Dave G4ASR winning Open.

24GHz Contests.
In stark contrast to the HF contests several of the club members, Andrew G0JCC, Tim G7KTP, Dave G4ASR, Dave G4FRE and Paul GW6UAJ have expanded upwards from their 10GHz highest band to 24GHz. (Paul has higher still). 24GHz is a whole new kettle of fish and needs either line of sight or things like rain scatter and reflections off towers etc to make the QSO. The guys were already going out portable but Tim was very keen to do well so I volunteered to help carry his gear to the summit of great takeoff mountains in the Black mountains. I say mountains as they also change location (roving) to work the few people that are QRV again for more points.
For the 24GHz Trophy this meant myself and Tim first ascending Pen-Y-Gadair and working all we could then packing away, descending, driving to Hay Bluff and ascending another 700m+ mountain, involving a 3hr total break in operating before working more again from the second mountain. This did work well for us and Tim made a record number of 27 QSOs to win the 24GHz Trophy:
The microwave guys also do a 24GHz (and beyond) cumulative set of contests which Tim entered mostly on his own as well (I think I helped maybe twice) and though he was pipped to the winning post in the individual events he won the overall series with a high average score and another trophy:
I think it’s fair to shake Hereford ARS shook up the microwaves world a little this year and you will notice 3 of the top 4 scorers are club members! Andrew and Paul in fact both winning one each of the four events.

The above only encompasses some of the highlights, the club and myself have entered and won a LOT of contests across the bands in 2025.

Last updated 22nd January, 2026

Improved car portable cable access

I’ve been using this method of bringing my cables in for a few years now:
Car Portable Cable Access

And whilst this has been OK it has some drawbacks. Once while packing away it blew away so I am actually using the 2nd incarnation! It forces the cables to the very top of the window by design which for stiffer coax like the LBC400 I use can make it awkward to pass it to the far side of the car for the weekend contests using amp(s). Also bugs manage to locate the very small gap there is and attack me as the light it directly above my head in the car.

So time for a new one. Clive G8LNR showed me pics of his which is a piece of thin ply and a letterbox. The letterbox I thought was a great idea so I decided to steal that idea.

So here I describe the making of my improved car portable cable access.

I wanted to make mine inherently waterproof so plastic was the obvious choice so I asked my friend Paul who ran a plastic injection molding company the best plastic to use and he recommended polypropylene so I got some 3mm sheet after measuring the window which was 4mm thick. Some places did 3mm and 5mm, some did 3mm and 4.5mm and some did 3mm and 4mm, alegedly. Following my Moulder principal of trust no-one, I ordered 3mm as I wanted to ensure it would fit into the same channels in the door as the glass does.

Checking the dimensions of letterboxes I realised that I needed the maximum opening I could get at the door pillar end of the glass. I started off by scribing the window curve onto cardboard, cutting the sides to shape then opening the window to the desired amount and scribing the curve again. I had to make a second cardboard one as the ends were truncated but soon had that test fitted:

Then a case of taping that to my 1000 x 500mm sheet of polypropylene to trace ready for cutting:

I then cut this out with a jigsaw using a metal cutting blade. After deburring it was time for the moment of truth. To fit it I would have the window down and insert the narrow end by the door pillar then flex it so I could insert it into the opposite channel then slide it up into the top channel. Then carefully raise the window to pretty much press it into the top channel. Only very slightly though as my car has one of those not required ‘safety’ features that if it detects any unexpected resistance it panics and winds the window back down again. Grrr. But managed to get it just right and et voici:

A bit of wavy line syndrome, both from the cardboard cutting and the jigsaw but more than close enough for this job.
I then used the offcut to cut a thin strip to attach to the outside as a cover for the plastic to glass joint to keep water out. A slot was cut out for the letterbox and everything drilled and screwed together with mastic to seal things up.

But we are not quite there yet.

As by design this is quite flexible, there is nothing to stop it bowing outwards from the glass at the bottom. It shouldn’t much due to being in the top window channel but it wouldn’t be a G1YBB design if I didn’t deal with that.

A few minutes in 3D CAD and a few more on the 3D printer and I had two clips to fit to the inside. It has a 1.5mm thick step (3mm polypropylene + 1.5mm > 4mm glass) and a tab to slide the glass past.

These were fitted then the assembly left over the weekend to give the mastic some time to set.

And here is how it looks on the maiden test fit:

If I can get a photo in the next UKAC I will but setup is now in the dark. I’ll definitely take one from the inside though and update soon!.

Last updated 10th November, 2025

G1YBB now published globally

I have appeared in print a few times over the years mainly for winning the Practical Wireless magazine 144MHz QRP contest. That is I would mostly a national magazine although I know it certainly has some circulation into Europe.
Me as a ‘cover boy’ receiving a trophy for the 2016 PW 144MHz QRP contest:

But this year I have discovered that G1YBB is now published globally!

Following the drama I had getting RTTY mode to work ( https://g1ybb.uk/rtty-setup-on-ic7610-with-dxlog/ ) I have had some good results in world wide RTTY contests. In the CQ WPX RTTY contest I actually set a new single band QRL record which I was really pleased with ( results table ) and also more recently (results released wise) have set a DX (all the World outside of USA) all time record score for a QRP section. This got me (so far) a mention in the August 2025 QST magazine. The report is slightly wrong as I wasn’t using a vertical – I have emailed Jeff to clear that up – maybe I’ll get a mention again in the full article.
Link to the QST article: https://contests.arrl.org/ContestResults/2025/RTTY-RU-2025-FinalQSTResults.pdf

I hadn’t actually noticed this article was online, I found out when I received an email from Hisami 7L4IOU to say congratulations and that he had noticed the mention and looked at my website and thought my contesting information sign was good and could he mention it in the Japanese magazine CQ HamRadio.
https://ham.cqpub.co.jp/

Obviously I said that would be great and we exchanged some more emails and then Hisami said he would send me a copy of the magazine. The last email was dated 6th July 2025.

Well, they certainly don’t mess about in Japan!

I didn’t know if Hisami meant a PDF copy by email or an actual paper copy. But I was only thinking towards the end of last week that if it IS a paper copy he never asked for my address. Then I though I wonder if he will use my (incomplete) address on QRZ as other countries may well not know it is an incomplete address. Before I had any time to think on this further my mum told me a book had come for me from Japan on Saturday 26th July 2025. You can see below the post mark date is 17th July! That 11 days from last email to hard copy in the post. And it’s THICK! And shipped to a partial address!

Opening the package revealed two books. One appeared to be a book of all the areas and regions in Japan and the other thicker one the main magazine.

On opening it I found, not surprisingly, it’s almost 100% Japanese, with the odd sentence/phrase or two readable in English. A good excuse to flick through page by page and see what was in it. I eventually found the section where I thought I might get a mention starting at page 186. (handy the page numbers are readable).
Obviously I can’t read the article but it appears to be a report on the RTTY contet where I get mention with my short call MW1B and some talk about that and then some about the contesting sign and some other general stuff about me from my website. Cool.

It has to be said, Amateur Radio really does cross all boundaries and makes the World a smaller place! Wonder if I can get G1YBB now published globally in another corner of the World?

Last updated 7th November, 2025

DXlog RTTY setup on IC-7610

As I had a terrible job managing DXlog RTTY setup on IC-7610 (NOT DXlog’s fault – it’s the RTTY side that is the issue!) and I know others have given up, I thought I would share what I did and my settings.
I AM NOT AN EXPERT – BUT – I have got it working very well in the end.

To start, this is on Windows 11 Version 24H2, however, I got it working on Windows 7 SP1 prior to this, noted all my settings down and got it working on Windows 11.

DXlog I am running V2.6.11 which as I write is not the current version but it is not broken, I shan’t fix it just yet!
I’m sure those running N1MM+ or WinTest etc can find similar settings. As said the biggest issue I had was knowing what settings to use.

Radio end.
Starting at the Icom IC-7610 end I am using a single USB cable for everything. This is using USB port 1 on the IC-7610:

When active that gives me these two COM ports:

Yours will be different most likely but I think if yours were say COM2 and COM3 then wherever I use COM4 you would use COM2, and same for my COM5 v your COM3.

In Windows Control Panel/Sound, I have renamed the default device names for the IC-7610 to something sensible that I can recognise:

I had my first success (after walking away to calm down more than once!) using the radio’s RTTY mode which is FSK keying. I have since managed to get AFSK working but I don’t use that on the IC-7610.

And these settings for RTTY are important (certainly the first 3, I haven’t touched the bottom one). Yours will probably already be set the same by default:

This setting I believe enables CAT to work on the first of the two COM ports the IC-7610 creates and RTTY to use the the 2nd COM port the IC-7610 works. It’s certainly how my radio is set and I have CAT control and RTTY working!

The following settings I didn’t cover in my own document to make RTTY work as I had already made some settings previous;y getting FT8 and CW etc working via the PC. So these may or may not have any effect:

PC end – DXLog & MMTTY.
Again, I am not claiming to be an expert on the IC-7610 or its settings, but these are taken from my working well setup.

Firstly, this shows the single radio entry in DXlog configuration using the first COM port my IC-7610 creates, COM4:

And the settings from clicking the Setup button on screen above:

The MMTTY version I use is the engine version downloaded from here:
https://hamsoft.ca/pages/mmtty.php
and the Engine only version because I am running inside DXlog:

This is UNZIPped into a folder on C: drive. No installer, just UNZIP. You can see that I have actually 4 folders. You can unzip the engine into multiple folders and when you choose that folder from DXlog and settings made are saved ONLY inside that folder. You can see I made 2 extra folders when I was getting AFSK working. That way my working MMTTY1 and MMTTY2 didn’t get broken!
I have two FSK folders and two AFSK folder because I tried to get dual rx/tx going so I could run on TRX1 and S&P on TRX2 but I couldn’t tx on TRX2 so I just use the one RX now, but I have left the folders there in case. You will also notice I have a 2Tone folder there, which I use as my 2nd decoder on RX1. I won’t cover setting that up, but it went quite well and is highly recommended.

To use FSK you need to add a small program (actually a DLL) called ExtFSK into each of the MMTTY folders for FSK to work. You will find the ZIP file download right at the bottom of this page:
https://hamsoft.ca/pages/mmtty/ext-fsk.php
Just UNZIP the files into your MMTTY folder above.

In DXLog RTTY settings I have these settings made. I have highlighted the settings for getting going with just one MMTTY instance for TRX on RTTY. For 2nd decoder if you leave as default MMVARI (I don’t have that that I know of) I see only the one decoder for MMTTY:

With the settings above made and opening an RTTY contest in DXlog you should see an MMTTY window like below appear. If not, in DXlog go to Windows/Digital Modes and tick next to MMTTY Radio 1:
Mine looks like the above as I ticked in the settings window “Only show FFT spectrum, waterfall and XY scope”. I did this to save space. I never touch the settings that are visible other wise so decided I didn’t need them.

So on the window above click Option(O) then Setup. This takes you to all the settings on 7 tabs. These are my settings and may not be perfect but I am making QSOs!

Demodulator tab:

AFC/ATC/PLL Tab:

Decode Tab:

On this next tab TX, you need to select EXTFSK as shown from near the bottom of the list of possible COM ports:

When you select EXTFSK as above, you should see a small window appear to make some settings. Here you can see I have selected the 2nd COM port COM5 that my IC-7610 creates. Also check the FSK output and PTT output as if you have set yours identical to mine they probably need to match up:

Font/Window tab:

On the Misc tab need to set as highlights for COM-TxD(FSK). For source you can probably leave as Mono. I have told my windows to make the sound card for the radio to stereo for dual rx. For single rx default and mono should be fine:

Clicking the USB Port button above looks like this:

And the final settings tab, Soundcard:

One final setting that I was told to do when I was struggling to make it work is to right click in the decode window and tick the 2125 setting as shown. I’m not sure if that is essential now but I still have it set like that!

This is the end of the settings.

If you tx now from DXlog either via macro key or via ALT K and the free type window you should see something like this twin peak signal on your radio and hear the two tones going:

If you can find an RTTY signal on air you can use the inbuilt decoder in the IC-7610 to decode it and check MMTTY is decoding something the same!
You will see garbage like in my image above the last one. That is what MMTTY has decoded with no antenna connected to me IC-7610.

I hope this helps get more people going on RTTY as I for one found it VERY hard!

Last updated 21st February, 2025

The YBB Wire Winder system for radials

This page describes the YBB Wire Winder system for radials for amateur radio vertical antennas and why I have come up with this design to make winding up vertical antenna radial wires easy.

I’m in the process of using my 50 foot fibreglass push up mast as a multiband vertical antenna as often referred to these days as a DXCommander. The build of that is detailed here:
https://g1ybb.uk/tmf-3-based-dxcommander-style-vertical-portable-antenna/

But one thing I have already discovered in various tests is the wire radials for the ground plane are a complete pain in the butt to deploy and untangle. If you do not spend some time at pack up taming the wires you are surely going to regret it next time!

My radials are in bunches of 6 soldered into one ring terminal per 6. Six wires really love building birds nests for some reason. Currently I am coiling up each wire and securing it with tape, then putting the set of six into a bag to isolate them from all others. This works but is very time consuming and will fail when raining as the tape won’t stick. Here is one set:

As I have several sets of radials of differing lengths I needed to come up with a better solution to make it faster and easier. After some pondering I have come up with The YBB Wire Winder System for radials. continue reading

Last updated 27th June, 2025

The GM3SEK mains filter

I’ve looked at the GM3SEK mains filter several times but nevertaken it any further. My worst noise at home varies with beam heading on HF so I suspect it is being received by the antenna itself and assume filtering the mains would have no effect. But recently I was testing an antenna on 80m and noticed quite a bit of noise from the Honda EU10i generator I have which wasn’t there (as I remember) some years ago on 80 using the EU20i. So I decided I would build a GM3SEK filter to try to stop the generator noise and as a side effect, could see what happens at home!

The starting point is on Ian’s site here:
https://gm3sek.com/2019/10/11/clean-up-your-shack-2019/

Last updated 27th June, 2025

Contesting information sign for passers by

Most of us that operate portable in any way will no doubt have had interested people come to ask us what what we are up to. My portable operations these days are almost exclusively contesting and single op so I don’t really want to break off a pileup to answer questions so I decided I would make a contesting information sign for passers by answering most of the questions before they ask them! I have found it to be very effective especially when I am tent portable on a mountain summit where there is a fair amount of walker activity. Often when I am in the tent listening around the band before the contest kicks off I can hear one person of a group reading out the card to the rest of the group. It’s been a great help. You may have even seen it in one of the Practical Wireless magazines in the PW 144MHz QRP Contest results write ups.

I printed and laminated it then peg it out with tent pegs from the pound shop between the summit and my tent:
It’s survived some pretty hairy and wet weather so far. I also have another one for car portable that I put in one of the windows (doubles as a sun shade in the summer evenings!)

A few people have asked about doing one themselves so I have add below a Word DOC file and DOCX file (both ZIPped up) for you you use as a start point for your own version, you can just change the images and wording a bit to suit. Just needs a few tweaks to make your own contesting information sign for passers by to suit your own situation.

What exactly are we up do.DOC

What exactly are we up do.DOCX

Have fun and spread the good word!

If you found this useful, I’m always up for a coffee…
https://g1ybb.uk/buy-me-a-coffee/

Last updated 17th July, 2024

RSGB 50MHz Trophy contest June 2020

Earlier this week I built a simple wire moxon antenna for 50MHz for use at home, detailed on this page (link). The impetus for this build was to contribute towards the Hereford ARS campaign to retain the RSGB VHF Championship Trophy that we won over the year long 2019 contesting calendar.

I already have a 50MHz yagi (link) for use portable when contesting but at 7.2m long it’s just too large to assemble in the garden and if I could get it to the height required for a clear view would put the fear of (deity) into the whole estate! So the plan is to add a few club points using the little moxon.

As you can see a vast difference in antennas! However I was not completely dismayed. I have been out contesting on the hills often with the big yagi and really struggled to break pileups to DX on sporadic E openings, usually with many other club members who I usually do better than just calling over the top of me. I’m always low power at 10W, but look at that beam man! So I have come to the conclusion that the vertical pattern of the long yagi is just not suited to the angle required to get good results on Es. I may be wrong as many others use reasonable beams but my post summer 50MHz contest catchphrase is:
“I bloody hate Es season!”

But the radiation plots of the moxon design I thought were very promising. Not only a great big fat front azimuth lobe (in red on graph below) with a 3dB beam width of 78° but a huge vertical shape )in blue on the graph) to it covering all take off angles you could imagine for Es. So despite having way under half the gain of ‘the beast’ that disparity in gain once we get off the main heading the moxon would ‘catch up’ a little and should also be launching skywards when required. My theory anyway!

So, contest day. I planned to do just 6 hours and as it’s more family friendly to get that over with in one session for me so I opted for Sunday morning and the last 6 hours before the contest ended. Amazingly for me I seemed to have pretty much cherry picked the best slot of the 24 hours. I was 4 hours into the contest before I got any other G squares than my own and IO81 adjacent to my square (I sit on the join line at IO82PA). But I was busy with the Es! Great fun. I only have 100W max on 6m and whilst some of the pile-ups especially to EA were hard to break it was very enjoyable! One station ( I think Italian) even commented “wow such a huge signal” after our QSO. This is on two bits of wire and some plumbing tube!

I was completely unable to raise all the ‘local’ EU countries like F, ON, PA nor could I get any GD, GI, EI, GU, GJ. If I had their country and square mults would have upped my score nicely. However my new temporary summer 50MHz contest catchphrase is:
“I bloody love Es season!”

QSO map below:

Last updated 17th July, 2024

Easy building of a moxon antenna with 4NEC2

As we are still on lockdown and my 50MHz yagi is literally too huge to fit in the garden let alone erect on my lockdown lash-up system I decided I needed to make something smaller to use at home. I didn’t have any aluminium tubing at home long enough to make a small yagi so I decided to make a moxon antenna on the recommendation of a friend. These are very compact and easy to make so it seemed like a plan. I decided on a wire based version as although I have some 12mm tube I could cobble together I didn’t have anything I could get today for the corners. Wire it is. I decided easy building of a moxon antenna with 4NEC2 simulations to find the correct starting point would be a cool project.

I’d already looked around the web and compared the various online moxon calculators and the AC6LA Moxgen program (link) and the Moxgen program seemed to be the best fit for the suggested spreader angles. (Even though I’m not using spreaders as such.) It’s dead easy, just put your desired frequency in and the wire size and click calculate:

That’s it, job done. Almost… continue reading

Last updated 27th June, 2025

Icom IC-9700 Contesting review

This is my brief Icom IC-9700 Contesting review based on my experiences in many RSGB and other contests, nearly all portable on a hill top and all three bands the IC-9700 covers.

I bought the Icom IC-9700 at the time the second batch of this radio to hit the UK were being hotly sought after. I had recently got the IC-7300 before it, which I also love, so I was pretty keen to get this one to add to my portable contesting stable. In it’s early days there was a LOT of negative talk about dynamic range and frequency drift, I’ll touch on that at the end.

I can honestly say right now, I love this radio! Review done.

Oh you want to know why? OK headline points for me…

Functionality.
The IC-9700 has brilliant functionality for VHF contesting. The spectrum display is the biggest new thing to me (on 144MHz and up). Whilst this is brilliant for spotting signals on the band (and for this reason I think everyone ELSE should have one to find me!) not only that it has made the biggest gain to my 144MHz performance since getting the 9700. The way it actually did this, apart from the signal spotting ability, is to highlight why I was getting so much QRM on 144MHz. I always blamed other club members out portable nearby, line of sight, and some using FT-991 radios. Whilst they did batter me there were some nights I couldn’t find who it was killing me on the old school radio I was using. The 9700 soon showed me:
I was getting awful QRM and the OVF warning in regular all night long pulses, as you can see all over the band, but particularly hammering me where I usually run (144.265). That’s no ham! We determined the source to be a local (100 metres away) pager system. For so long I had suffered this QRM without realising the true source. It took me a while but after buying one filter that wasn’t sharp enough I borrowed another bandpass filter that took out this pager QRM and left me with a bandscope a little healthier looking!
Couple this with the excellent receiver the 9700 has and it has truly transformed my 144MHz operating, and also on the other bands based on the receiver.

In the first QRM image above you can see I have the inbuilt memory buttons showing. The IC-9700 has these for voice and CW (maybe data?) and these are a complete godsend. I use two for contesting and one for general calls pre-contest. They auto repeat and you can get an external box to replicate the first 4 buttons. (Another build in the future)

You can connect the 9700 to your PC with a simple USB cable and get CAT control and data in out for things like digital modes, computer reading and sending of CW etc. So much easier than buying a rig interface box. I just use CAT when I am contesting.

The 9700 will also record both sides of a QSO as you go onto the SD card. Useful for DXers and the RSGB recommend doing this for contests. I guess it would be good for resolving disputes.

Those are probably the biggest plus points for me that I use all the time. Receiver functionality like adjustable filters and notch filters etc are there but not unique to this radio of course.

Performance.
As I touched on above, the radio performs excellently in my opinion. It won’t match a top HF rig into a high spec transverter of course, and may not have the optional roofing filters some radios have, but I have done very well with mine and I have seen quite an improvement in my scores since getting this and the 7300 (which I also love and has basically the same features). I find the receiver excellent and pretty good at withstanding some strong QRM locally as we have a pretty good turnout in the UKACs at Hereford ARS.

This radio does satellites (I know nothing about that) and can receive on two bands, but one of the first things I did when I got it out of the box was turn off the sub-receiver never to be used since. Until this March! March sees the RSGB March 144/432MHz where you need to operate on both bands at the same time. Not possible simultaneously as a single op but I set up with two antennas and two amps and ran on 144MHz and 432MHz, using CAT control from Minos to change bands by changing logs. Worked so well. However one thing I didn’t realise it could do was receive on one band while transmitting on the other. In the video below the 9700 is sat on top of the 70cms amp that you hear click when I Tx

I’m pretty impressed by that (as you can tell).

The “Bad Things”
When the IC-9700 was first announced there was a lot of talk about insufficient dynamic range to handle huge signals whilst receiving weak ones. Now whilst this might show up in a contest like 144MHz Trophy (IARU Region 1 in rest of EU) with huge signals from multiple antenna arrays and QRO amps (in fact our club station had such a complaint from a fairly close line of sight 9700 user) I can say that I have never had this that I can recall from another radio amateur. The only time my 9700 has shown OVF (overflow) is from the local pager mentioned above and from the Clee Hill radar station on 1296MHz. Bear in mind that I operate 11km away from G4ASR who has been known for being a very strong signal for many, many, many decades. (hehe Dave). I get strong signal QRM from him if too close in frequency when pointed at each other, but he has never put the 9700 into OVF (That is NOT a challenge Dave)

When the first units were received there was a lot of talk about temperature based frequency drift. It was the end of the world as we know it. Icom has since come up with a firmware upgrade to assist and GPS locked board and mods are available. I feel it’s worth mentioning I am using one of the very early units and it is as it came out of the box. No firmware updates have been applied. None have had anything I felt I needed. I don’t do data modes (to date) just primarily SSB. I have never had anything mentioned to me about drifting and never noticed anything on receive. That’s on all 3 bands. I do only normally use the radio on 10W on each band so I probably generate less of a temperature change. (They say it multiplies up on 1296MHz)
So if you want to actually talk to people yourself rather than letting a computer do it for you, the 9700 works. Works well.

One real issue that has reared its head with me is the single PTT output for driving amps and transverters etc. There is only one contact available that grounds on Tx for all three bands. People have designed units that read the C-IV data and generate a band specific PTT output and I do plan to build one of these myself. For a recent dual band contest however I did something a little more old school:

Summary.
I am really happy with the purchase of the IC-9700 to accompany the also great IC-7300. One thing I like is the matching form factor. They are practically identical so I can alternate them in my portable box depending on the band I’m using.

My suggestion is to think carefully about what the naysayers are actually saying and decide if their nays will actually have anything to do with what you want to do with the radio. For example, I’m not currently interested in EME or data modes like FT8 so the drift ‘problem’ doesn’t bother me. If I decide to do data, then there are firmware and hardware solutions ready to solve that.

Did I mention I love my Icom IC-9700?

Last updated 17th July, 2024