RSGB 3rd 144MHz Backpackers contest 2016

This 3rd session of the Backpackers series is timed to coincide with the last 3 hours of VHF NFD which meant finding a quiet frequency was going to be  interesting.

On the up side it was a glorious day when we arrived at the summit site to set up:
the take off to the East
Building the 9 element portable DK7ZB yagi:
setting up in the sun
Antenna up and ready. Some strange coloured background behind it!
what's that blue background
Shack up and ready for us:
shack for the day
Shack views don’t come much better than this:
view from the tent
To keep us sustained we have proper contester food:
serious contester food
Once on air we scanned the band looking for a slot between the strong VHF NFD stations. We found one a fair way from the strongest ones but one near from the North lifted our noise floor each transmission and made receive pretty tough. However we persevered and activity seemed pretty good though DX apart from Scotland was scarce for us.
We like to run mostly and keep the work rate up to keep the QSOs coming in and search and pounce when it goes quiet. The last hour was very slow after the NFD closed down but on the up side we had a receive back! We managed 120 QSOs which we were pretty pleased with and a best DX of nearly 800km to the Orkneys which was great. And he was booming down too. No ON or PA at all though.

QSO map:
3rd Backpackers 2016 GW1YBB_P QSO map
Claimed scores:
claimed scores 3rd BP 2016
Results:
Final scores 3rd Backpackers 2016
Winners of 3rd backpackers 2016Full results list (PDF)