[3830] CQ160 CW G5W(G3BJ) Single Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: G5W
Operator(s): G3BJ
Station: G3BJ

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Woolston UK
Operating Time (hrs): 28

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1457  State/Prov = 48  Countries = 75  Total Score = 1,123,974

Club: Chiltern DX Club

Comments:

An interesting contest !  Curate’s egg â€" good in parts. But some moments of
boredom as well.

I'd been doing some modelling at GM3POI's suggestion, of the effect of the
nearest tower on the vertical, and found that at some heights it gave a 12 dB
attenuation to the North East! So before sorting that out by resonating the
tower elsewhere (it models as naturally resonant when at full height on about
1.8 MHz) I lowered it completely for the contest.

The first evening got off to a bad start when I found an arc fault detected by
the linear â€" during the evening it had been snowing again (unknown to me) and
the vertical was standing in snow. Once that was cleared, the first night was
quite good, with solid signals to Europe and near-Asia but I heard no JA. The
US was late to get going, and it wasn’t until 04.00 that the rate began to
climb. No California the first night, but pretty good overall.

Saturday evening was a disappointment. Many signals were in the mush most of
the time â€" Europeans were weak - and no JA again although HS0ZAA was an
enormous signal. 9M6YBG was a reasonable signal, but did not seem to be hearing
Western Europe - or at least me. The A index at 17 was probably not helping
propagation.Things were so bad by 00.30 and tiredness was beginning to take
hold, so I elected for 90 minutes sleep.  It was not much better at 02.15, but
by 04.00 the US was again appearing in volume and this continued through to
08.00. At 06.00 my noise level suddenly shot up, with a sound like static rain.
I went outside and checked â€" no rain. But when it faded away about ten minutes
later, it had all the characteristics of static rain â€" reducing to a few
spikes and then stopping. Perhaps rainless static rain ?

In the run to 08.00, several of the westernmost states appeared, but I missed
out on NV and OR. The icing on the cake was being called by ZL3IX at around
0802.

Sunday evening was a bit of a mess. A few new mults from the East, again no JA
for me until right at the end.  T6LG refused to hear me, as did VU2BGS who had
a huge pile. For me, European callers were steady but not fast. The challenge
in the evenings is to work the Far East over the heads of the rest of Europe
and that remains quite tricky. But the Sunday evening was notable for being
able to hold a frequency with little adjacent QRM just inside the top of the JA
window. It was a nice quiet spot, and quite a few mults found me there.

A civilised contest, with daytime sleep periods. Operating manners left
something to be desired in some cases and some appalling clicks on a few
signals. I have a list !

Looking at the past year’s results, the QSO count I ended with is not too
bad, but the mults are poor â€" I hope because of the DX conditions and not the
operator.

Reflections: at last I am content with the receive antennas, which acquitted
themselves well.  The FT5000 continues to impress on cluttered big-signal
bands.

Thanks to everyone for the Q's.

73

Don, G3BJ

Equipment: FT5000+linear+ 90ft vertical
K9AY and two bi-directional beverages for receive
Win-Test (of course)
Total scoring QSOs: 1457  Score: 1.123M
Mults: DX:  75          States/Provinces: 48

Outside Europe countries:
XE, PY, CE, HK, HC, KV4, FM, V3, PJ2, P4, 6Y, D44, EA8, 3V8, CT3, EA9, 4X, 5B,
A65, HZ, ZL, TA2, HS, JA, VK6, A9, UN, 4L, EY, UA9,


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