[3830] CQWW CW GM5X(GM4YXI) SOSB/15 HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: GM5X
Operator(s): GM4YXI
Station: GM4YXI

Class: SOSB/15 HP
QTH: Ellon
Operating Time (hrs): 19

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:                    
   40:                    
   20:                    
   15: 1849    33      114
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total: 1849    33      114  Total Score = 546,693

Club: North of Scotland Contest Group

Comments:

I was away on business on Thursday/Friday prior to the contest and got home
about 1000 on Saturday morning. Consequently, it was 1100 before I was on the
air and was not really in the right frame of mind for a CW contest to be
honest.
15m SB unassisted. My, how conditions were different from one month earlier!
Saturday was a real struggle. It was pretty tough to get anything going at all.
I presume I had missed whatever might have been on offer to the east by my late
start, though I am guessing it was no great shakes earlier on either. I managed
about 3 ESP strength JAs long path and one or two VKs but it was a toil and the
UA9 and especially UA0 guys were few and far between. I never worked zone 19.
The opening to the US was rubbish, and I finished Saturday with a miserable 700
QSOs. 
Sunday was certainly better, eventually, though the band was slow to get going
and I thought it was 1500 or so before it shook off a lot of its unenthusiastic
feel. The only bright spot in the morning was a steady trickle of JAs long path,
some quite loud but no volume. By later afternoon the US stations were a bit
more numerous than Saturday but I rarely had what you would call a pileup.
Throughout the contest I noticed that when I had a couple of callers, the guy
who was not replied to first very frequently moved on. I guess a lot of S&P
stations don’t wait for GMs! I am sure I am not that slow to work
folks.......
Both days saw loads of backscatter and multipath that others have commented
upon.  The biggest problem I had was with Scandanavian/Baltic stations. Also, I
worked only a few SPs â€" unbelievable since they are usually very numerous and
most of them were a real struggle. I also failed to work several stations, from
goodness knows where, since I simply could not read the multiplex/frameshifted
calls and invitations to QRS fell on deaf ears.  I do not know if these effects
can be ‘one way’? But under such conditions, it seems to me a bit daft to
call in at 40-50+ wpm to be honest!

Plenty of bad signals around on 15m. Clicks in abundance but also very wide
signals. I have absolutely no doubt that this is largely deliberate. For me the
worst I came across were ER4A and especially LZ9W. The latter I tried to tell
about the problem I perceived â€" he opened up about 4KHz below me on Sunday
afternoon and gradually it became impossible for me to work anything, even with
him off the back of the antenna â€" the first time he ignored me and CQed in my
face. The second time the reply was to the effect ‘there is no problem with
my signal’. 
The band stayed open a little longer on Saturday and I managed to find and work
a very weak KL7RA for a double mult. I searched long and hard for a KH6 but that
never happened. Overall I probably did not spend enough time chasing mults so
missed a lot of zones and easy countries. I think knowing that I was always off
the pace with the late start probably affected my approach. Still, good fun and
there is always next time.


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