OK2KKW UHF Contest Dx-pedition to UK in 1998

After a long friendship with Giles, ex. G8DWQ, based on our cooperation in CATV bussines, we accepted his invitation and tried to contest from his QTH JO02SL in UK. Giles semi-retired from his original job and became a landlord of a small country hotel Toft Lion Pub near Beccless or Great Yarmouth in Norfolk county. The environment was superb and we were treated really very well there.

Unfortunately some members of OK2KKW were busy at their jobs, so we asked Slavek OK1TN, Jarda OK2GG and Vláda OK1CW for help. They are known as members of HF DX-peditions, good operators and our good friends. Lada, OK1DIX worked in the USA at that time and we met him in London.

We set up our station in Giles's caravan on the parking lot beside his pub and errected 15 m mast with the antennas. First impression on 70 cm about 3 hours before the contest was crazy - nobody on the band! We checked all our equipment and SWR again, everything OK. Simple - nobody on the air! After 30 minutes first signals - from Germany, JO40 square! Eventually we realized , that the activity on 70 cm in UK would not be too hot… At least much worse compared to 1994 in France.

The propagation during the contest was very bad, heavy rain, and strong north-east wind. Just a few G stations took a part in the UHF contest. Our results compared to G4LIP and M8V were bad, because our antennas were simply too small for UK. Contesting from UK is a complete different story than in OK or in middle Europe. Because the activity of G stations was poor, almost all QSOs were mostly to DL and PA. It implies that your signals must be very strong there to compete with the sigs of other local stations 400 - 500 km away. It also means that (beside QRO) special antennas are necessary. There's only one advantage with those antenna monsters, that they need to be rotated only in the range about 40 degrees to the east.

We, as G/OK2KKW/p, had two more disadvantages there. First was the QTH - 15 m high mast in a very flat area about 12 km from the coast. It means that the 1st Fresnel zone was heavily disturbed by the ground. The second one - serious TVI problems. There's only UHF TV in UK. Most of transmitters work on four TV channels. It means that the receiver antenna must be a broadband one and mostly equipped by the broadband antenna amplifier. Can you imagine, what happened, if 20 kW ERP on 70 cm was focused in to a broadband antenna at a distance at most one hundred meters? For this reason, we could not beam our antennas to the east for many hours. This affected our results rapidly. You can see them on 70cm and 23cm here. Best DX was with OK1DFC and HB5OK told us, we were his first "G" station on 70 cm!

Our "best result" was then probably the visit of Duxford Air Base museum (there was for example a Spitfire fighter with Czech immatriculation from the Battle of Britain there) and the night hamradio sightseeing tour in London.

We returned back home with the new contest experience and with pleasure, that UHF activity in our continental enviroment is much better. If we try a contest from G again we have to look for better antennas. We don't consider the 3^rd place on 70 cm in the U.K. UHF contest as a win.

	Giles's pub "Toft Lion" in Toft Monks near Great Yarmouth loc: JO02SL
	Giles (ex G8DWQ and his wife Jann)
	G/OK2KKW station in the caravan next to Giles's pub.

	Jarda (OK2GG) and Vladimir (OK1VPZ) are testing the 70 cm equipment.
	After the UHF Contest. From upper left: Matej (OK1TEH), Jann (G8DWQ wife), Jarda (OK2GG), Majka (OK1DYX), Vlada (OK1CW), Lada (OK1DIX), Vladimir (OK1VPZ), Slavek (OK1TN) and Giles (ex G8DWQ)