CQWW WPX Contest, CW
Call: G5W
Operator(s): 5B4WN G3BJ G3WGN N6GQ
Station: G3BJ
Class: M/2 HP
QTH: Woolston
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 34
80: 404
40: 1053
20: 1841
15: 1483
10: 329
------------
Total: 5144 Prefixes = 1366 Total Score = 16,453,212
Club: Chiltern DX Club
Comments:
This was a contest of highs and not-so-highs at G5W. We elected to try, for the
first time, the M2 category, having done MS in CQWW for years. But we had rarely
done a multi-op entry in WPX, so this M2 entry was a first.
Marios, 5B4WN, David, G3WGN and Jeff, N6GQ (who was passing through the UK on
business) joined me to make the team of four. David and Marios had operated
here before, so familiarisation issues were minimal.
Starting the contest, the A index was 11, rising to 19 later on the Saturday.
This made for some tricky conditions, and long sustained runs were hard on any
band. Signals from the 'banker' spots like JA and W were distinctly down, and
every mult had to be worked for. Happily the Sunday was better, but I doubt
this will go down as one of the best CQ WPX’s, altho ugh the rapidly
increasing creativity in some countries to generate new prefixes means the PFX
count is rising each year.
Still some really rough signals on the band, and what seems like an increasing
prevalence to go off and S&P and then expect to return to the run frequency
some minutes later and expect it still to be free ! We had a few shoot-outs
here, although won all but one of them !
A few "Murphy" interventions caused moments of concern:
-appalling weather in Shropshire brought static rain which seemed to impact 10
and 15 quite badly for a while
- a fault with one of the LED monitor screens caused it to lock up - we suspect
RF was to blame, and I'll be applying clip-on ferrites to effect a cure.
- whilst rummaging around the monitor, we managed to pull a plug lead on the
CAT to one of the transceivers, which meant loss of band data and a running
repair on the Sunday
- and most mysteriously, the band decoder for antenna selection threw a wobbly
in the middle of a QSO and refused to allow connection to the 20m antenna.
After a quick investigation, it cleared itself and never returned. Weird.
Given the difficulty of sustaining a fast run, this M2 effort was more akin to
a MS entry, with a lot of mult-chasing, and even finding it more productive to
work through the band map of non-mults and tune the band rather than to keep
pressing the f1 key! Good support from the RBN and associated skimmers meant
that spots were plentiful, but it was still necessary to comb the bands from
time to time.
The Saturday was quite busy, despite the conditions and at the half-way point
we had 1100 mults. On the Sunday the rates were a little lower, but the score
rose nicely with the multiplier bell being brought into service to keep up
motivation later in the day!
All in all an enjoyable weekend’s radio. Thanks to Marios, David and Jeff for
joining in the fun, and to everyone for the QSOs.
Usual equipment here:
2 x FT5000+ linears
10-40 yagi at 80ft
10-20 yagi @ 60 ft
160/80 dipoles @ 80 ft
90ft Titanex
K9AY and beverages for receive
Networked Win-Test for logging - rock-solid as ever
We don't expect this to be as high a score as the leading stations in Southern
Europe, as they enjoyed better conditions, but it would seem to be the best so
far in the UK for M2
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|