ARRL DX Contest, SSB
Call: M6T
Operator(s): G4PIQ
Station: G4MRS
Class: SOAB HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 41
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
----------------------
160: 5 5
80: 286 37
40: 710 53
20: 771 59
15: 960 59
10: 1346 60
----------------------
Total: 4078 273 = 3,335,787
Club: Martlesham DX & CG
Comments:
Rig : 2 x FT1000MP + PAs
Ants : 160m - Dipole @ 22m
80m - Delta Loop @ 23m
40m - 402CD @ 24m
HF - TH5 @ 24m + A3 @ 26m
120m Beverage
A little frustrating this one - the current European record set in 1992 for
this event is 3.32M - I can't imagine that this score is going to hold up well
enough to checking to break that! Anyhow - there may well be someone about with
a bigger score!
I spoke too soon after the CW leg where I thought that I had solved some of the
noise problems at the site. It was obviously the excellent 160m conditions in
the CW leg which gave me that impression. This time things were lousy on 160,
and I couldn't hear much of the small number of stations that seemed to be beng
worked in Eu. I worked a small handful of people at dawn on Saturday morning. I
tried calling CQ, but only K5ZD responded to that - maybe I should have
persevered a little more. On Sunday morning I couldn't hear any of the US folks
who were about, and I just heard KC1XX in the last half hour of the contest.
Tried with W3LPL, but couldn't hear them above my noise floor.
80 went fairly well with almost double the total QSOs of last year and a few
more multipliers. No CA worked this year though. I used a phasing box to cancel
the noise on this band which helped a lot until I blew it up on Sunday
afternoon by trying to cancel the noise on 15/10 by using the second radio
tri-bander as a noise antenna. Unfortunately, I gambled that there wasn't going
to be enough RF coming down that second antenna to kill the FETs and lost!
40 continues to amaze me with over 700 stations worked split with just the
shorty 40 antenna. About 250 QSOs up on last year and a much more healthy
multiplier total. One of the highlights of the contest had to be moving VY2SS
to 40 while it was still daylight outside (1745) and making it!
20 got caught in the middle again and didn't get as much attention as it
warrented. Unlike last year it was not runnable through the night, and it
closed very early on Sunday which really scuppered my plans. On Saturday I got
to 20 too late to catch the west coast opening (just the Eastern and Southern
folks runnable) and ended up having the likes of WY, MT, UT and a bunch of
other theoretically easy mults missing. Made an early visit to 20 on Sunday to
catch many of these, but in the end the band closed (or rather it just got to
that point where you are too weak to hold a run frequency) completely by about
2045 on Sunday. This left the decision of where to go now. I looked at 40, and
couldn't even find an Rx slot between the broadcasters (couldn't find W3LPL etc
either) so did a bit of fairly fruitless S&P on 20 and managed to do some short
runs until I got trampled again. Then after half an hour or so was able to go
to 40, find a slot of sorts and start to run again.
Ended up having IA missing........
15 was also pretty short of mults after the Sunday session for the same reason
as 20. I went there too late to catch a lot of the West coast mults. Spent some
more time here on the Sunday which was not all that good a choice since the
mults I was looking for really weren't calling at that time, and runs on 10
were consistently faster. Caught the missing mults (except VE4) later easily at
the right time.
10 was in good shape really. Openings were shorter than last year, but QSO
total is pretty similar, and there were good runs to be had. Don't think
conditions to the northern West Coast area were so good this year.
Overall - great fun. Unfortunately I lost the plot a little after 20 closed
early on me on Sunday and didn't make the most of those final hours, flitting
too much between one thing and another.
Lesson - I was roughly aware of the Eu record, but had it mind it was
about 3.5M. Had I checked properly before the start of the contest, this fact
would have given me the focus needed to make the last few hours more useful and
I'd have concentrated harder and worked the second radio harder. Overall -
didn't use the 2nd radio too hard (101 QSOs) since mults tend to come to you in
this one (or you move them - thanks to everyone who did so for me). With the TR
rate meter up in the 170-250 region for hours on end, I found that using the
second radio here made for killing the rate too much unless the receive
frequency was very quiet and I could copy the weak folks in one ear first time
almost every time!
Andy
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