VHF Field Day 2023

VHF Field Day 1/2 July 2023

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There will be a more detailed web page describing our foray into this year’s VHF Field Day contest. However, it is necessary to quickly process the logs and submit them to be included in the adjudication so we’ve done just that. Logs for 50MHz (6m) Low Power, 70MHz (4m) Low Power and 144MHz (2m) were uploaded through the RSGB Contest Portal today (05/07/2023).

We won’t be able to make any assessment of performance until at least Sunday 9 July 2023 when all logs will have been submitted and claimed scores (subject to adjudication) will be published. At the time of writing:

• 67 logs have been received for 50MHz, with 5 in the low power class including us and Bath and District ARC,
• 39 logs have been received for 70MHz, with 4 in the low power class including us and Bath and District ARC,
• 78 logs have been received for 144MHz, with 9 in the low power class including us,
• 42 logs have been received for 432MHz, with 7 in the low power class,
• 26 logs have been received for 1.3GHz, with 3 in the low power class.

Looking at the Low Power class participants as of Wednesday 5 July 2023, our likely competition is:

• G0OIW/P (Non AFS Groups) with a mono-band entry
• G0OLE/P (Goole Radio and Electronics Society) with a tri-band entry
• G3WKX/P (Maidenhead and District Amateur Radio Club) with a dual band entry
• G4BAD/P (Bath and District Amateur Radio Club) with a dual band entry
• G4HZG/P (Burton upon Trent Amateur Radio Club) with a mono-band entry
• G8DXU/P (Southdown Amateur Radio Society) with a mono-band entry
• GM0ULK/P (Aberdeen Amateur Radio Society) with a mono-band entry
• GW1YBB/P (Hereford Amateur Radio Society) with a mono-band entry
• M0OXF (Harwell Amateur Radio Society) with a mono-band entry
• M0TZM/P (Telford and District Amateur Radio Society) with a mono-band entry
• M7HLA (Mid Cheshire Amateur Radio Society) with a mono-band entry

There are a couple of other entries who have operated in Low Power but on other bands in different classes, it is assumed that these stations will enter in the “Mix and Match” category rather than the low power category and as such whilst their performance on those bands where they operated using low power may affect our normalised scores they shouldn’t influence the Low Power standings.

It’s very difficult to estimate how we are likely to perform; year on year comparisons are not very reliable since the changes that can occur in terms of band conditions, operators, equipment and even location can mean that what appears to be a poor score compared to a previous year can actually turn out to be a good result simply because the conditions were poorer and everyone was in the same boat.

That said this is what we are claiming this year compared to our last successful entry in 2021 when we won the Low Power class:

Here’s some rough maps of the contacts on each band which will be redrawn as scalable maps when our main web-page after action report (AAR) gets published.

50MHz (6m) Contacts

70MHz (4m) Contacts

144MHz (2m) Contacts