Solar storms normally effect the HF bands rather than UHF, and there had been a couple of days of poor conditions on the HF bands prior to this months Contest. Conditions seemed fairly poor on UHF though and trying to work IO81, 82 and 83 was really hard work. Whether this had anything to do with the Solar storm I do not know.
It wasn't until the last 30 seconds of the Contest that I managed to have a qso with Tony, GW8ASD in IO83 square for a new multiplyer. I am beginning to think that Tony leaves me until the last minute just to make me sweat. I only managed one contact in each of IO82, 82 83 and 95 squares; and they only happened in the last 20 minutes so it just goes to show,don't give up hope until the very end.
There were some huge signals but there appeared to be plenty of the room on the band. I managed to hold a run frequency on 432.127 until the last half hour. After I lost control of that I went search and pounce until I found a free spot around 432.175 for the last few minutes.
Thanks to everyone for the points, some contacts were a bit hard work and some of the regulars were not heard at all.
I ran 9 watts to a 19 element beam made by SDARS member Andy 2E0WAX up at 12 meters agl. I also used a HA8ET LNA at the mast head with Ecoflex 15 feeder.
Once again my admiration goes to those stations who seem to able to find those extra, magic multiplyers.
73 es gud dx de Jim G0HGH
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