[3830] ARRLDX SSB M6T(G4PIQ) SOAB HP

[g4piq at btinternet.com]

                     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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