[3830] CQWW CW M5E(G0CKV) SOAB(A) LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: M5E
Operator(s): G0CKV
Station: G0CKV

Class: SOAB(A) LP
QTH: Nr London
Operating Time (hrs): 36

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   57     8       47
   80:  408    17       76
   40:  525    32      111
   20:  333    31      105
   15:  490    34      119
   10:  414    33      122
------------------------------
Total: 2227   155      580  Total Score = 3,662,505

Club: WEY VALLEY AMATEUR RADIO GROUP

Comments:

A fun weekend at the M5E/G0CKV super-station!
I seem to have a masochistic urge to find ways to handicap myself and poor
antennas is a sure way to make a contest more challenging and thus interesting.
At my suburban QTH I enjoy the proximity to the pleasures of London but the
downside is space, antenna restrictions and RFI. I tend to use near-invisible
wires and something very temporary in the middle of the lawn when I get on for
a contest weekend. For two years I have done 40m SB in CQWW with a vertical in
the lawn but the rumours of decent HF condx tempted me to add all-band to the
challenge this year and that turned out to be a good decision.
This year I put a triband trap dipole (Cushcraft D3 for 20-15-10) at 26ft on a
push-up pole. At this marginally elevated position it stares into the roofs of
the houses in the area and into the crowns of the trees. A 40-m inverted V was
suspended from the same low level. For 80 and 160 I have a 1mm wire winding
itself up a tree to a similar height before it stretches out horisontally to
form an inverted L placed such that it picks up as much noise at possible from
my house. 
It does not take long to learn that trying to keep a frequency and run is not
very enjoyable with LP and these antennas. On the occasions I tried I got a
trickle of 1-point qsos at a rate of say 50-80 and that is booooring. I am
inevitably rescued from my boredom after a few minutes when a big brute starts
to CQ on top of me presumably mistaking my signals for general background
noise. So S&P is the order of the day and night. It appeared that all big
stations were busy trying to CQ so S&P was exceptionally productive this year.
I assume that the spread of activity over so many bands also helped a LP S&P
guy - there were quite simply more stations sitting there pressing the F1
button running with only a moderate pile-up, if any, for each. I had long
periods with an S&P rate of 80-120 and occasionally above that. With a focus on
easy multipliers and 3p-qsos S&P yielded much higher score productivity. With LP
and poor antennas the pile-ups generated by the cluster-mob are totally useless
and most pile-ups generally are non-productive except that it is useful to
remember where the DX is and check back frequently for a lull in his pile-up.
Giving the cluster-mob a wide berth also improved my mood considerably and made
me enjoy the bands rather than worry about the future of mankind and the
dumbing-down of the hobby.
Rig was a K3 which is absolutely superb on CW and WinTest was good and stable
as usual. In addition to my super antenna farm I benefitted from assistance in
the form of my tolerant wife serving occasional sustenance, the most recent
baby grand-son who visited for his first CQWW and provided cheerful and
inspirational diversion and distraction and then of course the RBN. The old DX
cluster is banned at this QTH.
Thanks for the fun. Quite a few, but not all, stations that were CQ-ing at
40wpm picked up my mini-call including the trailing e on first attempt when I
responded in kind.  That is impressive! Next contests here probably REF CW as
G0CKV and ARRL CW as M5E.


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