[3830] WPX SSB M6T(G4PIQ) SOAB HP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, SSB

Call: M6T
Operator(s): G4PIQ
Station: G0KPW

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: JO02RF
Operating Time (hrs): 35:55
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:  121
   80:  807
   40:  469
   20: 2007
   15:  168
   10:    0
------------
Total: 3572  Prefixes = 1063  Total Score = 10,484,369

Club: 

Comments:

This looks a little more competitive than I had expected...

 BAND   QSO DUP  PFX  POINTS   AVG 
-----------------------------------
  160   121   0   13     252  2.08 
   80   807   7  408    2829  3.51 
   40   469   4  114    1525  3.25 
   20  2007  30  458    4883  2.43 
   15   168   2   70     374  2.23 
   10     0   0    0       0  0.00 
-----------------------------------
TOTAL  3572  43 1063    9863  2.76 
===================================
     TOTAL SCORE : 10 484 369

About 290 second radio QSOs

2 x FT1000MP + Alpha 87A + Titan

Ants
160m : Inv-V @ 28m
80m : 4 square + Inv-V @ 20m
40m : Random 402CD / Rotary Dipole @ 30m
20m : 204BA @ 28m + TH5 @ 32m
15m : Extended 155CA @ 25m
10m : 105CA @ 30m (FWIW) 

A last minute decision to do this one. Setup in weather that was wet, cold and
windy (gusts to 90 km/h) - certainly too windy to riase either of the 2 towers
which had multiple antennas on. Thankfully about 5pm Friday the wind dropped
and I was able to get both those towers up and guyed off and before complete
darkness came got the 15m one up to 80% height. 

I operated 0000-0622, 1140-0318, 0505-0619, 0720-0742, 1046-1106, 1206-2359.
The short periods of on-time on the second day were an attempt to try and
capture some additional mults from areas that might have got ignored otherwise,
but were generally a raging disaster where basic scoring rates were nowhere near
high enough so I canned them pretty quickly. Was a bad choice to have swapped
some LF night-time operating time for them. While tired, I also screwed up my
off-time calculations slightly and with the 1 hour minimum off-time rule ended
up 5 minutes short of 36 hours operating time. 

The advantage of a 36 hour format over the 48 hour format of CQWW isn't that
you get more sleep though - it just gives you more time to fix tings that
break. During the off time on Saturday I dropped the TH5/402 tower to try and
fix an intermittent problem with the 402. Found an open circuit on the loading
coil on the other side of the reflector (second one of the weekend), but quite
badly corroded. Thought that I had fixed it OK, but unfortunately the problem
returned to haunt me. This isn't a good contest to try and be competitive on
40m with a rotary dipole! On Sunday I had an amplifier in pieces during one of
the off-times!

Overall I thought that conditions were about as good as could be expected at
this point in the cycle - certainly better than in the Russian DX Contest,
although I didn't hear a signal on 10 all weekend (didn't look much though!),
15 was very poor with no US opening (other than NQ4I on scatter), very little
to Asia (though Steve 9M8Z was very loud Sunday) and, just as reported by DR1A,
no USA opening at all night 1 on 40m, and a marginal one on night #2. I
therefore spent a lot of time on 80m and 20m! I had some awful periods on 20m
where I just got run off my frequencies, including a 42 hour at 1700 on Sunday,
but there were also some pretty decent hours to be had there. 

This was my second serious outing with Win-Test - better - but I still don't
like all of it as well as TR and I found a number of irritating bugs which I'll
raise on the Win-Test reflector - however having full control of headphone
switching for SO2R from the keyboard and the automation of this into scenarios
is very useful, and ultimately, DOS is dead.... 

Thanks to everyone for the QSOs. Thanks to Bob, G4BAH for the use of the
station again, and to Julie for letting me out to play and looking after our
daughter all weekend twice in a month! Should be quiet from me for a few months
now.

73,

Andy, G4PIQ


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