[3830] IOTA SM5CKV/P(G0CKV) SO(A)24CW LP

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                    IOTA Contest

Call: SM5CKV/P
Operator(s): G0CKV
Station: SM5CKV/P

Class: SO(A)24CW LP
QTH: Harstena EU-177
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  CW Mults  Ph Qs  Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
   80:   190      50                
   40:   407      71                
   20:   491      76                
   15:   150      38                
   10:    90      20                
----------------------------------------
Total:  1328     255      0        0  Total Score = 2,731,050

Club: Chiltern DX Club

Comments:

This was a field day style operation except that I operated from a small
cottage/cabin. That was as well because the sun and the heat the week before
would have melted the tent or the gale a few days before the contest would have
blown the tent away or the unusually spectacular thunderstorm on Friday would
have evaporated the tent while any remains would have been washed away by the
rain that is forecast for next week.

This was the location:
https://maps.google.com/?ll=58.252179,17.007995&spn=0.013639,0.046091&t=h&z=15

Since it was my first ever entry in an IOTA contest I tried to be smart and
plan a strategy based on previous results and the contest rules. That clever
strategy cost me dearly - I was well behind after the first few hours before I
decided to go ad hoc and just have fun.

I used a single K3 and two 10m GRP poles holding the center of some simple wire
antennas in inverted-V configuration: an OCF dipole that kind of worked on all
bands with a little tuner help, a 40m dipole tuned for low swr on 15 and two
parallel dipoles for 20 and 10. The loss in the fairly long and thin and light
coax cables made matching easy for the built-in tuner in the K3.

I traveled light so I didn't bring a mic - apologies to those who asked me to
QSY SSB. Since I was going to be on the island for two weeks I did however
bring a few bookshelves worth of books but they were neatly compressed into my
Kindle so quite light to carry.

The summer condx were about as good as they come considering the overall state
of our solar affairs.

But what a difference compared with my home QTH in the London suburban jungle:
with these wires I could be heard and the noise level was S0/S1 at first making
me worried about the health of the very quiet K3. At home very little RF escapes
the hidden wires in the shrubs and the noise level is S4-6 on a good day.

IOTA was a fun contest and I believe - but I can't prove - that I more or less
managed to stay awake for the full 24 hours. The price for that was paid by the
stations I worked who had to suffer my confused attempts at the keyboard and
paddle as I got tired.

Few complaints if any - operators were generally excellent; no-one stole my
frequency; the bands were active but not over-crowded; signal quality was OK
except for some with bad key clicks which combined with the remarkably powerful
signals from some stations can be annoying. 

If you have half a chance, escape the world and go expedition-style to an
island for next year's IOTA contest - thoroughly recommended!


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