[3830] WAE SSB M6T(G4PIQ) Single Op HP

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                    WAE DX Contest, SSB

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

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 35.5
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  QTCs  Mults
-------------------------
   80:  182   128    46
   40:  315   185    64
   20: 1302   990    96
   15:   38    30    22
   10:    0     0     0
-------------------------
Total: 1837  1333   612  Total Score = 1,934,532

Club: 

Comments:

Rig : 2 x FT1000MP + Alpha 87A

80m : 4 square
40m : 402CD @ 30m (Day 1), 1/4 wave vertical (Day 2)
20m : 4el @ 28m + TH5 @ 30m
15m : 5el @ 30m
10m : 5el @ 30m

This was my first attempt at a WAE contest, so didn't quite know what to
expect. Wasn't in the original plan of contests to do for WRTC qualification
since we were meant to be on holiday, but plans change and my thanks go to my
partner and my 2 year old daughter for doing without her Daddy for another 4
days! 

Not too much station building to do this time - spent Friday in the pouring
rain swapping over a 10m yagi for 15m yagi on one tower, fixing some conections
on the 80m 4 square but mostly just winding up and guying off 4 crank-up towers.
Only one of these has an electric winch and my muscles declared that 3 really
was about as much as I can do in a day! Better than going to the gym - but only
just! Finished off tying off last ropes just about when the light had all gone.
Station setting up was also pretty straightforward, and I was ready to go 90
minutes before the start - that hasn't happened for a long time!

Started the contest on 40m which ran OK, but not spectacularly and from early
QTCs realised I was a long way behind GW4BLE, CS2T and others - learning point
- run simplex on 40m SSB to the US. Once the rate went from there I went to 80m
where the band seemed pretty reasonable, with some super signals from VE6 and
VE7 in particular. I saw that 160m was in good shape to the West Coast US from
Europe and this seemed to be reflected in the quality of that Northerly path on
80 from here that night. With a quick dip back to 40 at dawn I closed off the
morning session with 258 QSOs. 

Got back to the radio about 1030 and was horrified to hear nothing on 15m at
all. Camped out on 20m all day with some good runs to the US and a useful
handful of JAs and other Asia stations, but with the second radio mostly tuning
through noise on 15m all day. Worked a tiny handful of US stations on 15m, but
nothing like the sweep of East / Central US / VE call areas which Steve GW4BLE
reported. Once 20 closed about 1945 I went to 40m, ran some Asia there
(slowly!) and caught 4 x JA on 80 at their sunrise - which is decent going from
this far West in Europe. After some twidling about, managed then to go to 40 and
start a reasonable US run recovering some of my lost ground until at 0025
disaster struck - my noise floor dropped, I checked the SWR on the 40m yagi and
it was 3:1 and - worse - was arcing. Sctatched my head for a while - checked
everything in the shack - didn't come up with any answers and went to 80. Ran a
bit on 80, but then started to worry about how to balance my off time well and
decided (maybe wrongly) to take some off-time from 0110. 

Without 40m, I figured the best thing to do was to stay off all the way to
around 0800 and hope that 15m would be better than the day previous, and I'd
get some mults on 15 to make up for the volume of QSOs and the mults from 40 &
80 overnight. That was not a great decision - 15 was almost a carbon copy of
the Saturday, although I did catch a minimal set of Asian mults which weren't
available later in the morning and the rate on 20 was awful. About 0930 Bob,
G4BAH - the station owner showed up in the shack and we discussed the 40m
situatuion. We decided to take down the 40m yagi and try and fix it. Bob wound
the tower down (thank you!) and then I took my remaining 50 minutes off-time
and went outside to fix the antenna and wind the tower back up. It took nearer
1.5 hours, and I couldn't make a perfect repair because of some siezed parts
and no spares to hand, but at the end of that I thought I had found the culprit
joint on the 402CD loading coil and had a working antenna again. 

About 1130, back to 20m and another reasonable afternoon to the US, though 
conditions to JA didn't seem as good as the previous day. Very little again on

15m and I tried the odd move to 10m. Only station heard was 4X0T who I heard
for about 2 seconds on what I presume was probably meteor scatter extended F2 -
was there a 1 hop F2 path from the Mediteranean to 4X - quite possibly.

Trouble only really hit home when I went to call my first mult on 40m and the
amp tripped immediately - the 40m problem was back.... I had a brainwave which
had eluded me the previous evening in sleep deprived mode - try running the
antenna through a tuner. I did this and started to try and run on 40 and after
a few QSOs the antenna went completely open circuit! I imagine that the
off-tune antenna had gone low impedance and the additional current forced
through by using an ATU found a weak point in the feed-point connection! I was
then stuck with only a 1/4 wave vertical with a handful of radials on 40 for
the rest of the contest. Enough to work a few mults / QTCs, but not good enough
to run. Luckily 20m limped on with a selective but slow US opening until quite
late and I could make 80m last the final 90 minutes or so.

Thanks to everyone for the QSOs, QTC and moves, and thanks to Bob, G4BAH for
use of the station as usual! Congratulations to the other competitors for high
placings this year - looks like it will be interesting, but I'm not expecting
anything - too much went wrong.

73,

Andy, G4PIQ


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