Hi all,
Ever had one of those weekends?? The ones you wish you hadn't started?
Well, that was mine.
We had 3 electricians here on Thursday/Friday, and although they cleaned up
pretty well, part of the work they did was to provide a totoally seperate
circuit for the shack.
I was also in the middle of redecorating the dining room, so after all that,
I knew I wouldn't get to start the first session of the contest. That wasn't
really a major problem for me, as I can't stay awake after bedtime, although
I had planned on getting up early and catching a few hours on the bands.
Nope, that didn't work either.
Wanted to start on Satruday evening for the second session, but family
assistance was required, so it was a no-show for me in the second session.
I'd informed the boss (XYL!) that I was contesting all day on Sunday from
9am local time, and that actually met with a nod of approval, so I got all
set up, and ready to start at 0800UTC.
I found a call to work to get me on the way, but when I tried calling him,
no transmission. What? Checked all the ports, couldn't find anything
untoward, so closed Writelog, and re-opened it. Aha, no problem now.
Made that first call, got it logged, and went to the second. No transmission
again. And now no internet connection either. Closed WL, re-booted the PC,
and all was OK until the next contact. That worked OK, as did the next few,
but the problem persisted until around 1030UTC. I can't work out what went
wrong, or why, as although I have just upgraded to WL v10.78, it had worked
nicely in tests during the past week.
I guess it must have been RF getting in somewhere, but why this morning, but
not this afternoon. Who knows.
Anyway, conditions were appalling all day, although there were a few odd
decent openings. Worked E21YDP, 9M6XRO and several JA's, all of whom had
good signals. Also bagged K7QQ for a W7 mult, but struggled to work W1/2,
often requiring several attempts to get the exchange across.
One good highlight of this contest was the fact that I managed to get to use
my new "Easy Rotator Controller" for the first time.
What a plus that is! No more holding the button of the rotator down, and
waiting while it moves. All I do now is to click on a heading and it goes
all by itself! Amazing, and it saves a lot of wasted time.
I used the software that came with it, and this allows you to just click
anywhere on a small compass rose, and away it goes.
The problems I had, plus the poor propagation meant it was hard to get a run
going anywhere. Nothing on 10m apart from a single 9A call with S9++
signals.
15m was hard work, and some loud stations just couldn't hear me, but weaker
ones got me first time. Very odd, but all part of the enjoyment.
My poor score reflects all the above:
Summary:
Band QSOs Pts Mults
-------------------------
80: 0 0 0
40: 0 0 0
20: 103 1220 51
15: 36 440 30
10: 1 10 1
-------------------------
Total: 140 1670 82 Total Score = 136,940
Op time about 7.5 hours after all the problems at the start.
Thanks to all for the fun, and my log is already on LoTW.
73 de Phil GU0SUP
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