[3830] Commonwealth C4Z(5B4AIZ) Open-24 LP

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                    RSGB Commonwealth Contest, CW

Call: C4Z
Operator(s): 5B4AIZ
Station: 5B4AIZ

Class: Open-24 LP
QTH: km64
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
   80:    6
   40:  159
   20:  231
   15:  186
   10:   28
------------
Total:  610  Total Score = 5,250

Club: Chiltern DX Club

Comments:

Well we could hardly call that a fun event after all the excitement in recent
contests with increased SSN's, we got the short straw for sure. Band cndx were
crud, not only unreliable propagation but band noise was terrific but we stayed
with it - we must be mad!

I needed to replace a repaired rotator, an escalator lift  (Cherry Picker) was
booked for Friday - he didn't show,I guess he got a better offer than my
minimum one hour booking, so it arrived 3 hours before test start time on Sat
am, Because I was single handed it  was time consuming to raise the Tower
whilst at the same time ensuring the two 40m dipole ends and  the end fed 80m
wire plus the pulley rope for hoisting the dipole didn't twist or tangle, the
job needed 3 persons ideally because, (typically, the day previous was calm),
the wind was blowing a gale. Finished the job with 20 minutes to go, it could
have been worse.

Around 22z I qsy'd to 80 and was met with almost complete silence, switching to
the 40m ant to make a comparison and noise nearly knocked me over, that ant, inv
V, looks for noise in spades. Anyway what was the problem with the 80m wire?
That ant has the braid bonded to the top of the Tower with the feed inner core
end fed to the wire. After tying it off I had checked the SWR and the rig Auto
ATU tuned it nicely, no aparant problem. Of course mid morning there are no
sigs or noise on 80m so I wasn't alerted. I figure that the lift cage must have
pulled on the wire and it has gone open circuit, it didn't part as I use the
Post Office method of twisting strong wire around which takes the strain and
weight. The ATU has made a nice job of tuning the feeder! That explains the
abysmal 80m result of only 6 qso's which were made on the 40m dipole. Golden
ears award goes to Peter G3LET who got the call first time, he must have great
beverages. Apologies to the other five who really had to struggle. I called it
a day on that aspect as I was not going to lower the Tower  in darkness.They
say "Fail to plan and you plan to fail", that describes me as I have been
putting off this job for the past 3 months, wish I could fit a tiltover in
here.

The shortcoming of 24 hour contests is that you get one shot, or windows of
opportunity, for different areas for dx, improved cndx overnight do not help
windows that have gone, hence our carribbean travellers got a raw deal this
time on hf. !0mtrs never opened for them to the east, 15 & 20mtrs were abysmal
and we can see how much their q counts are well down on usual. I was interested
to read about the qth of Peter, G3PHO in VP2E on the Beru site, his sigs on the
lower bands where we could actually hear them without a struggle were head and
shoulders above the others except perhaps the VP5 who was likely high power
anyway, quite outstanding for a low power stn.

Apart from Africa, which we always hear, propagation on 10 mtrs was long, east
/west tropical regions with a BY at the start, then PZ5 a litle later, breaking
windows, with nothing to be heard in between. Sunday am had very strong sigs
here from VK6/VK4 and scratchy VK2. I don't know if this islands big guns Alan
(P3J) or Steve (ZC4LI) worked any UK on Ten  but I never heard a cheep from
there despite many qsy's with UK guys. 15mtrs did open east from here and west
to the UK but VE & Carrib was pretty zilch, real crummy.

20 mtrs was very scratchy to all parts, 40mtrs, noise apart was probably the
best dx band for those with good antennas but overnight is no fun diving into
the MUF trough to scratch a few qso's. i usually grab 3/4 hours sleep at the
dead time but I wanted to make up for the loss of 80mtr q's so I made do with
about 90 minutes but I wasted my time for 9 q's and 3 BCA's, it really was not
worth suffering the noise. I can't really comment on 80m but it seemed quiet
and not very good.

Thanks to the dx who so readily qsy'd, without them my totals would look a lot
worse. Everybodies scores look well below  last year and I personally
anticipate dropping down the leader board this year but am hoping that we (ROW
Team) can hold on to our top position. 

 
QSO's, after dupes 610    -    5,250pts.   (Last year  - QSO's  731  - 
7,575pts)

Eqp't.   TS570 - 100w.  3 Ele Yagi up 15m + LF wires as above.  Logging with SD
Commonwealth prog.

73  Brian  5B4AIZ.


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