Callsign Used : M6T
Operator : G4PIQ
Category : Single Op, All Band, High Power, Unassisted
Team/Club : Martlesham DX & CG
BAND Raw QSOs Valid QSOs Points Prefixes
_____________________________________________________
160CW 12 12 24 1
80CW 136 135 335 24
40CW 596 585 2211 207
20CW 930 909 1961 238
15CW 1265 1237 3063 299
10CW 80 79 189 29
_____________________________________________________
Totals 3019 2957 7783 798
Final Score = 6210834 points.
Rig : 2 x FT1000MP + PAs
Ants :
160m - Dipole @ 23m
80m Delta Loop @ 23m
40m - 402CD @ 25m
20/15/10 - KT34XA @ 30m + TH5 @ 24m + A3 @ 26m
It was nice to be able to organise myself to have a decent crack at a
contest for once this year, and
anyone who knows me will be shocked to know that I was sat twiddling my
thumbs before the start of the contest rather than frantically still
putting the station together! A big part of the reason for this was that I
was just planning to use the club station at work where most of the
antennas were already in place. Thanks to Darren, G0WCW for coming along in
the afternoon and sorting out the 160m dipole on the tower while I spliced
a rotator cable which the lawnmower had got to; built an extra keying
interface; fixed (I thought) an intermittent on an AMP PSU, fixed a loose
control spindle on another amp, re-built the switching system and generally
took the station apart and put it back together for SO2R.
Had a few odd problems during the contest, but nothing disasterous. About
halfway through, lost the amp on the 2nd radio which I thought I'd fixed
the afternoon before the contest, but had a spare available to drop in. I
knew that the low band ICE filters don't have as good isolation as the K4VX
filters we'd used previously (though the HF band ones are much better), and
the 6dB attenuator in the FT1000MP discovered this since a LOT of 40m RF
ends up on the 80m loop the way the antennas sit! However - a second 80m
filter in series prevented any further problems. Building works on the site
prevented my putting up any beverage this time which made 160m very hard
since the transmit antenna suffers from a 20dB excess noise floor from
something very close to the antennas. But neither it nor 80m seemed in very
busy form, so probably not so much was lost there.
One of the main reasons for having a crack at this contest was to get a bit
more practice at SO2R on CW. I'm getting better, but there's a long long
way to go! I still have to force myself to use the second radio when I'm a
bit tired, and after all the effort I was gutted to see only 143 second
radio QSOs on the summary! I also find I'm very left ear biased - always
use it for the telephone and I find copying stuff harder in the right ear,
especially when there's something important going on the the left one! I
don't think it's any less sensitive, just habit - will have to spend the
next few months using my right ear for the telephone! I really want to
support the view that there is absolutely no need for a seperate category
for 2 radio operation since it's far more about skill than it is about
equipment - this is really hard to do well - at least I think so!
Conditions seemed excellent on 15m to JA in particular, although I found
the US more difficult to run than I had expected - was I weak; in QRM; or
was it just the summertime. In general I suffered from not being as familar
with summertime propagation as I should have been, and in particular with
how things are changing as we go up the cycle. 40m produced some good W
runs, though oddly enough, not as good as in the SSB leg. 80 and 10 were
quite disappointing. On 80, it just didn't seem to run well to W, but maybe
I didn't try hard enough at the right times - the good 20/15 conditions
tended to make me spend more time there and then go to 40 later where there
was good 6 point rate to be had. 10 was just plain disappointing. I spent
almost no time running on 10 - ran a few Ws, but with all the guys North of
4 land being on scatter over South/Central America.
As usual, any feedback on how the signal stacked up would be interesting.
Thanks to everyone for the points. Look for you all in IOTA which is
probably the next time I'll get a chance to give a major HF contest a
decent bash - we'll be multi op for that I expect.
73,
Andy, G4PIQ
g4piq@btinternet.com
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