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[3830] Commonwealth VK3MI SO-Restricted-24 LP

To: 3830@contesting.com, bdm556@bigpond.com
Subject: [3830] Commonwealth VK3MI SO-Restricted-24 LP
From: webform@b4h.net
Reply-to: bdm556@bigpond.com
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2021 01:44:36 +0000
List-post: <mailto:3830@contesting.com>
                    RSGB Commonwealth Contest - 2021

Call: VK3MI
Operator(s): VK3MI
Station: VK3MI

Class: SO-Restricted-24 LP
QTH: VK3
Operating Time (hrs): 23

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Bonus Pts
-----------------------
   80:   57      850
   40:  168     1280
   20:   82      880
   15:   24      410
   10:    6      100
-----------------------
Total:  337     3520  Total Score = 5,140

Club: 

Comments:

I again set up a portable station at a rural farm stay about 70 km east of
Melbourne, due to the high level of manmade QRN and lack of space for antennas
at my city QTH. I hauled up two multiband horizontal dipoles to a height of
around 20m between some gum trees – one aimed at North America and the other
at Europe.

As usual, despite my best plans, it was a scramble to get the station set up in
time before the start of the contest. Heavy rain was forecast for the Saturday,
so I decided to take time off work and set up the antennas on Friday afternoon.
Unfortunately, a car tyre got a puncture and went flat while driving to the site
so I lost several hours getting this fixed. This also meant I was forced to
complete the antenna work in torrential rain on Saturday afternoon and ended up
finishing in darkness with only 30 minutes remaining before the start of the
contest. I than hastily set up the station and computer equipment and was
relieved to be able to get on air just in time to catch the short 15M opening to
UK at 10:00z!

As summarised below, I ended up with a claimed raw score of 337 QSOs and 5140
points, which is a decent improvement over the 272 QSOs and 3930 points that I
achieved in 2020. I attribute this to a combination of factors:

- Better conditions on the high bands. I managed to make 6 VK QSOs on 10M,
compared to nil in 2020. I was also able to work 8 UK stations during a short
15M opening to UK at the start of the contest. I did not hear or work any UK
stations on 15M in 2020.

- The availability of additional HQ stations from for bonus points

- 80M seemed to play better this year and I think this was largely due to my use
of horizontal dipoles rather than the quarter wave vertical with elevated
radials that I had used in previous years. Vertically polarised antennas seem to
suffer from excessive losses at this location due to their proximity with the
surrounding trees.

- This year I used RG11 rather than RG6 TV coax for the 70m long feedlines
between the operating position and the location of the antennas. This reduced
transmission losses on 10M and 15M by up to a couple of dB.

The only 5 band QSOs were with VK stations but I was pleased to make 4 band QSOs
with G3BJ, G6XX and GM6XX.

Thanks to everyone for the QSOs and especially the large number of HQ stations
for all the bonus points! A special shout out to 5Z4VJ and ZF2CA for their
exceptional patience with the many repeats required to pull out my weak signal
on 40M and 80M respectively.

Radio: FLEX-6400 100W
Logging software: WriteLog
Antennas: Pair of 80M-10M orthogonal multiband horizontal dipoles (20m height)
aimed at North America and Europe


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