Many of our Club members are very keen on portable and contest operation, particularly on the VHF bands, and have found that these events provide an excellent opportunity to make a lot of contacts during a relatively brief period. As RSGB President Dave Wilson M0OBW says: "...contesting advances operating skills and promotes friendly rivalry in our hobby. In addition, clubs and individuals ambitions to progress will make technical innovations in order to improve the efficiency of their stations, which helps to advance the self-training aspect of Amateur Radio."

As a Club, we've been posting competitive scores in major national events, including winning some of the RSGB Club Championships.

And as the first-ever winners of the RSGB VHF Contest Committee's new award for the overall Champion Club, we donated a trophy for this event, which was presented at the RSGB AGM in Bedford in April 2010.

RSGB overall VHF Club Championship 2009

And following these victories, we received the congratulations of the contest Adjudicators (as well as the new RSGB President) for stimulating a tremendous amount of new interest in these events, where the entries were up on the previous year by a factor of two or three times - with a particular concentration in the North-West of England!

Also in 2009, we've been running our own M3OTT Trophy Contest between our Members, over two week-long sessions in February and December.

Here are some of our recent results: