RSARS RALLY REPORTS No.26

12 RANMORE AVENUE
CROYDON
CRØ 5QA
Telephone: 0208 654 2582
Fax: 0709 200 3417
E-mail: M1CCF@talktalk.net

There have been reports of all hands being lost in the mud, of vintage radio spares having been seen floating away and of a vast number of visitors.
Actually all are untrue, although it is true it did rain a little, well on Friday on setting up quite a lot in fact, and again on Saturday for most of the day. Sunday was forecast to be bright and Sunny, well its nearly true that it was, by about 4pm, when most hardy souls had departed leaving Les with the remains of his paddock. So the RSARS stand never got even unpacked, and is still dry and sellable.
The usual, idiot like, diehards were there Andy, Paul, Les and Mike, and they had their antenna tuned and sparking by the time of the 19.30 VMARS net on Friday evening, hatches battened down and 3.615 or so carefully picked out from all the other noise. Andy and Paul seemed, as usual to get through with their C13 and VRC322 combinations, while Mike tried to get the G5RV to resonate having ditched the folded dipole of past years. It all worked and contact was made! (Yes even M0VOG, this time) True to our vintage we actually like working AM, but did spare a few minutes to work SSB to RSARS members. Saturday looked as though it could be better, we even saw some blue sky, for about 3 minutes. The BBQ went off well, sort of sheltering inside one of the stables with the evicted horses looking on. We never did see the local radio club or even one RSARS member other than those there as organisers, all of whom no doubt decided that a spot of rain was not to their liking. The bonfire we sort of declined to light as the rain decended in even greater magnitude. (Goodness knows what Les is going to do with it now, may be keep it until next year for an even bigger and better Gatwick Radio weekend in 2009) Somebody wisely said "now if we had chosen the following weekend"...... (but we didnt, did we!
We will let you know the date for 2009, book it in the diary and dont be put of by the odd drop of rain. Just come on in, enjoy the hospitality, and have a bit of field day fun.
The photographs tell it all, some of us are used to roughing it a bit! We enjoyed it, Les did as well, and Carol's vintage goodies were well picked over. Oh, forgot to say, it nearly didnt rain on Sunday, so we almost got away dry.
Boots DMS or Hob Nail may be a future requirement

Mike M1CCF/M3ACF
RSARS Regional Rally Rep (South)