Contests
Club Contests
Club contests are friendly affairs with everybody helping each other where possible.
Construction
We run our own Construction contest, for members. This is normally held in April of each year. Although we score the exhibits and award prizes, it is much more of a helpful “see what I have done” type contest with none of the “I’m better than you” type of attitude.
Direction Finding
We sometimes run informal direction finding contests, either around the school premises or elsewhere. These are mainly conducted on top band (1.843MHz).
Operating
Since September 2010 we have run a series of operating challenges. Their main aim is to encourage members to get on-the-air. We tend to run two challenges each year
- one in the Spring/Summer, and
- one in the Autumn/Winter
For full details of our latest challenge, please follow this link.
National Contests
National Field Day
National Field Day (NFD) is run by the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB). The aim is to contact as many other stations as possible within a fixed 24 hour period using only CW (Morse) on the HF bands (below 30MHz). Stations taking part in the contest must be portable (i.e. not operate from a building) and not use the mains for power, although the contacts can be with any station.
The society took part in every National Field Day from the first one in 1934 until 2013, when the number of operators who felt capable of sending Morse under contest conditions had reduced to the point where an entry was no longer viable.
Our successes have included:
- 1934 National Field Day, winner
- 1957 National Field Day, leading 3.5MHz (80m) entry
- 1970 National Field Day, leading 1.8MHz (160m) entry
Certficates
Copies of Certificates awarded to G4AYM (and G2HX) from various Field Days.
National Field Day Results 2002 to 2013
Details of our more recent results can be found by following this link.
Earlier National Field Day Results
Many thanks to G4CIB for providing this list of our NFD results from 1957 to 2000.
Photos
Other Field Days
In addition to the main NFD, the RSGB also run other field days, including:
- Low Power Field Day
- SSB Field Day
- VHF/UHF Field Day
Gloucester Amateur Radio and Electronics Society has, over the years, run stations in many of these contests.
SSB and VHF/UHF Field Days
Both of these contests normally take place on the first weekend in September and so are not conducive to a club entry, given that we take a break in late July and August. We did, however, become the 2nd British Station (and 4th European Station) in the 1977 SSB Field Day.
Low Power Field Day
As the name implies, Low Power Field Day (LPFD) requires stations to use less than 10 Watts (3W in some categories). The contest is much shorter: 3 hours in the morning and another 3 hours in the afternoon of the same day. It’s still for portable stations and mains power is banned.
With the exception of the years from 2009 to 2014, the club has entered LPFD almost continually as it is much easier to find operators and much easier to assemble and remove the station.
LPFD Results 2000 to 2018
Details of our more recent results can be found by following this link.