Radio weekend all over

Hi Guys,

Well, another busy radio weekend done and dusted, and I have to say Im a little sick of it to be honest, I feel drained and my ears are exhausted from straining to listen.

Firstly we were in Blackrock Castle for a CASHOTA activation.  I had really wanted to operate on 40m but our antenna was having other ideas, so much so that it refused to operate effectively.  That, plus the interference from the castle technology and the noise from the people coming for the free tours for Cork Heritage Day made it a challenge to hear to say the least.  So we settled for 15m for voice, and one of the other members had set up a WSPR station, followed by PSK31 on 20m (which I found extremely fascinating).  We also had one of the members with a satellite station set up.

Although the voice station wasnt great (partially due to all of the above factors), the digi station was brilliant, being able to log different signals throughout EU, and some Stateside, which we had then projected on to the wall for visitors to see.  The PSK31 station also did its job quite effectively and made some nice contacts.  In saying that though, the major achievement of day for me was the contact to Japan, which I thought was really good despite the problems.  There was also a lot of interest in the satellite station, finishing the day with a lot of stations calling through Im told.

Today also was the IRTS 2m counties contest.  I decided to operate in the low power fixed category and as it was my first contest of this kind, I had to read the rules to see what it entailed.  Unfortunately for me, I didnt get the responses I had thought I might and was getting a bit frustrated as time went on.  I used the max of 10w allowed and honestly thought there would be more QSO's involved.  In saying that, my log book is a complete washout as I was concentrating so hard on how to operate within the contest (ie you have to QSY once you have called and been answered, or if you have answered a call, then you have the freq for one more QSO) I totally made a hash of the logs, not that there were many, I think 6 in total, which I was dissappointed with, I thought the participation would be a lot more (or maybe it was a I just couldnt hear them)

So now its all done and dusted and Im mentally tired.  Maybe I have to take another holiday from the rig or else Im just not cut out for the constant activity lol.  My brain may need to be trained, Im sure I have a game on my Nintendo DS that does that haha.

So Im off to relax for another couple of hours.

Ciao for now, Lisa EI9GSB