As if somebody had thoughtfully booked it, the Sun made a most welcome appearance and we had one of the warmest and driest day of the year. The playing field had a huge number of stalls and the Halls were packed with traders. Fortunately the Gleed School playing field is huge so that, even with many traders, there is still plenty of room and no-one felt cramped or crowded lending to a very relaxed and convivial atmosphere.
Andy, 2E0WAX, set up a demonstration portable station that rivaled anything that many of us can achieve from our home QTH's. This year he concentrated on 18MHz and had a 3 element mono-band beam and 400 Watts up at a respectable height. This generated lots of contacts using one of our Club calls, G1DSP/P, and also a lot of interest from visitors. As usual, at the busiest time during the Rally, Andy spent more time chatting to visitors about his station equipment than actually operating but then that is something that Andy enjoys as well. He is a great ambassador for Amateur Radio.
This years Rally saw the QRP Club attending with a stall for the first time and with them partly in my mind, I decided to give my Rockmite ][ 30 transceiver that I had built, its first airing. I made a dipole antenna cut for 10.106MHz and put that up about 7 meters agl on a glass fibre fishing pole, fairly close to the QRO station. Needles to say as soon as Andy started to transmit I experienced break through. However it didn't really cause any serious problems as my station created nearly as much interest to visitors as Andy's and I spent more time talking about the Rockmite than operating it.
I was delighted to make my first QSO however using 400 milli-watts with SM6DEC, receiving a 539 report from Ben in Lidkoping. I went on to make 2 more contacts in Germany and felt like it had been a constructive morning.
The Worked all Britain group had their AGM in one of the School rooms and also had a stand in one of the two halls. A large variety of Traders attended including local antenna manufacturer M0CVO as well as the RSGB, Lamm Communications, VK6CJW, Bourne RC, Alan Clegg, Knobby, M Thurnton, RAOTA, Cambs Labels, Carol Hebden, Kevin G3AFF, March RC, MS Electronics and Synotel VK.
By all accounts everybody enjoyed themselves and, once again, Spalding Club members gave the Amateur Community a very warm welcome. With many Rallies folding in recent years, the Spalding Club Rally is becoming one of the most prestigious in the Radio calendar.
So until next year, best 73 de Jim G0HGH/P
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