Hi all,
Just like my old school reports, this contest could/should have been
labelled as "Could do better" !!
It didn't help that Valentine's Day fell on a contest day either! That meant
I would have limited time to spend in the shack on Saturday, or at the very
least, a risk of a serious injury with some blunt instrument!
I did get up early (for me!) and was up at about 0630UTC. I started on 80m,
and was pleased to log P49X, OY3JE, V31YN and YN2S quite easily. 80m was in
good shape, and 40m was almost as good, and I stayed on the lower bands as
long as possible, just doing S&P for now. I went up to 20m at around
0930UTC, and had some great fun, although I did wonder why I wasn't being
heard by some of the usual calls. I then discovered that I was working 20m
with my half-size G5RV instead of the beam, and I was putting out only about
10 watts. I'm amazed that UN's and UA9's were even hearing me!
The rest of the day was spent mostly S&P, but also some CQ'ing. It seemed
that each time I decided to CQ, some station with a HUGE signal would come
and sit right next to me, often obliterating the exchange, and requiring
loads of repeats.
I actually QSY'd up the band at one point, only to find the same call once
again sat right by me. Most annoying.
After a pleasant meal at home, sat down with the XYL, I made an excuse and
"popped out to the shack for a few minutes". Those few minutes turned into a
couple of hours, and I think my credit rating went down a few points after
that!
On Sunday, I was again up by 0630, and decided to hot 80m once more. Sadly,
conditions had deteriorated quite a lot overnight, with the A index going up
to around 20. Not so good. I did try CQ'ing on 80m, and was quickly called
by an OE for a new mult, but then I was getting deliberate QRM from a CW
"ditter". He was putting a string of dits right on my Mark frequency, and it
messed up any chance of receiving. I QSY'd further up, and then got blasted
by SSB stations.
80m started to fade soon after 0700, and 40 was only marginally better, but
I did work WW4LL and YY5LI before going up to 20m.
I then spent most of the day on 20m, as although 15m was open, there were no
further mults that I could hear, so I thought it best to stick with 20m, and
the lower bands with the extra points.
During one CQ session on 20m, I was very pleased to be called by E21YDP, and
also by A71CV!
As I made over 850 QSO's and 434 Mults for over 1M points last year, I knew
I wasn't going to beat that, so I decided to hit as many mults as I could,
and I set a target of 400. By the time I closed down on Sunday evening, I
had worked 401 mults, so that kinda made up for the rest.
I was very pleased to work OY3JE and D4C for new band-slots on 80m too.
My one big dissapointment was not being able to hear a V31 station on 20m. I
need that for my DXCC! I worked V31YN quite easily on 80m, but could not
hear any V31 on 20!
I did note a few things that weren't quite "playing ball".
First were the number of stations that did not send a callsign with the
exchange at all. One or two, you can cope with, but there seemed to be
dozens of them.
Also, stations that ask for a repeat of the serial number, but then start
calling CQ again before your macro has stopped.
I'm not sure who the op was at AK4K, but that was what happened to me with
that one. I did log it, but I am not sure!
And following on from that were stations who didn't send any aknowledgement,
other then seeing them call CQ, and at least give the next serial number to
someone else.
Then there were stations that went QRZ? AGN? AGN with my call, but then sent
TU 599 001 only.
One station sent me (when asked for a repeat of the number) TU 599 589 599
589 599 589, so I guessed 589, but not really the best use of a macro!
And how many times did you call someone, only to have them come back to YOU
with a call?
Like this:
him: CQ TEST DE AB1DC AB1DC TEST
me: DE GU0SUP GU0SUP GU0SUP
him: GU0SUP DE AB1DC AB1DC KN
I had this at least a dozen times.
OK, so maybe some of these guys are new to RTTY, which is good, but I have
to question why the in-built macros in some RTTY programs are already
pre-loaded with 3 X 3 calls!
Oh well, despite the negatives, I did have fun, and wished I had done
better.
Anyway, here is my claimed score:
Band QSOs QSO pts Px's
80m: 79 336 59
40m: 161 656 111
20m: 321 761 231
15m: 0 0
10m: 0 0
Totals: 561 1753 401
Claimed score: 702953
My log is now on LoTW, and thanks to all for the fun.
73 all
Phil GU0SUP
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