Several club members met at the arena for participating in the annual RAC Winter Contest. A low key contest which is ideal for those who are not avid contesters. We had several of our newer members out to watch and to try their luck making calls. This time the antenna was fully operational but the location still suffers from high local noise. The noise was strong enough to make SSB contacts difficult. Ralph managed a decent number of CW but SSB was lagging.  We were using an IC-7000 radio, one that came from Jim Leary (VE7BCJ). After trying for a while with limited success, Eric brought out his noise cancelling unit that he uses in some parks, It dropped the noise floor two s-units and we are able to hear many more stations.

Done with contesting, we packed up and made for Brown’s for lunch where we continued our conversations and had a pleasant afternoon.