May Meeting – Report

Iain M0PCB told us about his March trip to Montserrat where he rented a villa complete with antennas and spent a week working the world with a rare’ish DXCC callsign – VP2MXI. He took his own gear, a K3 and amplifer, plus laptop of course. Although VP2M is not that rare on the DXCC most wanted list, when he appeared on the bands he faced large pile-ups and a seemingly never ending queue of stations wishing to make contact. The main reason for his trip was to take part in the RSGB’s Commonwealth Contest, a 24 hour CW event during which stations in the British Commonwealth work each other. He managed to spend some 22 hours in front of the rig during the contest and made over 1200 QSOs. In the “Claimed QSOs” list Iain is in 4th place worldwide – a superb achievement. As well as photos of his station he also showed photos of the island and told us something of its recent history.

Very many thanks to Iain for a really interesting and very inspirational evening.

G3NKS