When it becomes time for the UKSMG magazine to drop through our letter box there is always a rush to check the post. I rush to get there first to read the latest copy of Six News, my XYL rushes to hide it so I get on with my jobs!
During April 1992 I got there first, and whilst thumbing through the magazine, before settling down to read it, I spied Cliff's (G1IOV) plea for members to run a special event station (GB6SIX) from their county.
That evening Six News in one hand, telephone in the other, contact was made with Cliff and GB6SIX was duly booked for Gloucestershire.
Originally I was going to run GB6SIX portable during the day and from home in the evening, but as I discovered this was not allowed because of the special licence requirements, so I opted for going portable.
Many hasty phone calls to a local farmer and a few local operator's set-up the basis for running GB6SIX from the Cotswold Escarpment.
During subsequent phone calls to Cliff, the farmer and friends the dates were set - great, Now all I have to do is get operators to man the station. Ah! Club Night, a good time to grab a few volunteers!
Put the idea to the committee was the cry. So duly presented, discussed and adopted, the weight of Stroud and District Amateur Radio Society was put behind the project.
Well, give me a sub committee, members of a club, and access to the club's equipment and I will give you a four day special event station, manned continuously from 12.00 GMT Friday to 13.00 GMT Monday.
I decided that as we were going portable and 6m can be a little fickle with its openings lets take 2m as well, just have to put up another mast with a 2m beam on it, wait a minute, if we're erecting two masts we can string a full size G5RV between them and run a HF station as well.
More telephone calls, visits, meetings down the local hostelry and the mould was set. GB6SIX in Gloucestershire was going for broke.
Right that's the equipment sorted, now what else? Oh yes operating tents, etc. Back on the phone, visiting, meetings down the pub and volia! tent for 2m, caravan for 6m and awning for the HF station, toilet and a 5kw generator for the power source.
Off we trot to make a site visit armed with compass, pencils and paper . The layout of the site was created, positioning of masts, operating areas, parking areas and of course the loo.
Next consideration was the operating desires of all, to make this a fun club event. Well, I like a challenge so we decided to take RTTY, work FM and don't forget the novices, skeds were drawn up and dispatched via Packet Radio and Six News.
The week before the event was taken up with checking all the equipment, pinning down volunteers for the erection party, operating and the breaking down of the station afterwards.
Thursday night was the final meeting before the off, all arrangements were checked and double checked, equipment packed up and then it was off to bed for an early start in the morning.
Friday morning, I woke to brilliant sunshine, after a quick breakfast Darrel (G0HVQ) arrived and much vehicle packing started, meanwhile in other parts of the county Tony (G0ATX) was packing up his caravan with one mast and various goodies, Doug (G4VZR), Mister Electric's, was loading his van with gallons of petrol and his wonderful 5KW generator, and the dynamic duo Reg (G0OOF) and Ron (G0MZK) were loading a van with the other mast, tents etc.
A quick? Dash to G0ATX's QTH, where we met ( He has the largest drive), a quick run through in case we'd forgotten anything and off the convoy went. Strange isn't it that when you have a line of vechiles going through towns with bits of metal strapped all over them people tend to stare, I wonder why that is?
Eventually we arrived on site, as always a few of the club members were there, so unpacking was a very quick affair, masts laid out, antennas built, rotators connected up and up goes the first mast, cheers went up, then we realised we had forgotten to attach the G5RV, so down it came again, well it really was just a practice run Hi Hi. Soon we had the masts and antennas all erected, Tent for 2m operation, Caravan in situe, equipment installed and generator running and GB6SIX was on the air.
The 2m station and our sister station that we ran on HF - GX4SRS ( Shame we didn't have GB0SIX ).proved to be very popular, and did a wonderful job at getting operators to dust off their rigs and contacting us on 6metres.
So the days and nights settled down to radio operating, bar-B-Que's and coffee? drinking, apart from the initial pile up the best part of the first day was contacting Chris who was running GB0SIX at the same time, unfortunately because of conditions it was a CW contact, which was a pity because most of the operators were very keen to work him.
The first RTTY contact was made to Gif (G7BPX), and the first FM contact was with Bob (G1ZKU) and our first Novice contact was Pat(2E1AFN).
During the Saturday we were unable to run RTTY owing to a technical gremlin, but this was fixed for Sunday after a dash home and hasty repairs.
Over the duration of GB6SIX we had many visitors to the site, and one of the most notable visitors was PA0LVB, Harry who was driving pass whilst on holiday over here, a true radio ham, left his XYL in the car and stayed with us for a few hours, and on the Monday revisited us for the morning and stayed to help break the station down.
We even had a visit from the local constabulary in case we would interfere with their communications, shame we were packing up at the time!
What can I say about the Special event, wonderful, everyone who visited and helped man the station had a tremendous time, during the entire period at least one band was active and most of the time all three were going flat out.
The photographs taken over the weekend are held with my solicitor pending payment for their destruction!
My thanks to all members of Stroud and District Amateur Radio Society and other local radio hams for all of the effort they put in to make GB6SIX - Gloucestershire a success.
The local farmer for allowing us to invade his field for four days.
The visitors, especially the ones that helped us break down the stations.
All the stations we worked, without whom there would have been no point in being there, you should have heard some of the comments on HF about us, still, no men in white coats appeared!
And of course, to UKSMG for allowing us to run GB6SIX especially Cliff and Kerry (G7EXO) for their help and support.
187 Contacts on 6 Metres
113 Contacts on 2 Metres
Equipment used:-
6 Metres - Yaesu FT-690R 20W linear, 4 element Beam
2 Metres - Yaesu FT-221R,16 element Tonna
HF - Yaesu FT-301 , Full Size G5RV(North-South)
Well, UKSMG had better start planning the 25 years of 6 metres soon, We are thinking of EME, Satellite, and other modes for the next one!
73 De Peter - G7ETZ
C U On Six