[3830] CQWW CW G5W(@G3BJ) M/2 HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: G5W
Operator(s): G3BJ G3WPH G4DRS M0PCB
Station: G3BJ

Class: M/2 HP
QTH: Woolston
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  364    16       70
   80: 1078    30      110
   40: 2044    40      134
   20: 1718    39      140
   15: 1327    39      152
   10:  901    35      145
------------------------------
Total: 7432   199      751  Total Score = 14,689,850

Club: Chiltern DX Club

Comments:

CQWW CQ was a kind of last minute arrangement here this year. I had toyed with
the idea of doing it SO, but when I realised that I had to be in Switzerland
for IARU work in the week running up to the contest, that seemed a dumb idea.
Then John, G4DRS, put a note on the reflector asking about a possible seat
somewhere for the contest, and I decided we'd try another multi-effort.

Mike, G3WPH, Iain, M0PCB and John G4DRS were kind enough to come up to the
wilds of Shropshire to play radio for the weekend. I had no time to do much to
the station but did, at Mike's suggestion, put up an extra 40m antenna (ground
plane) for those moments when the beam is in the wrong direction - and it paid
off. Apart from that , the station was ready to roll.

We opted for the M2 category as, with four people, we could sensibly man two
stations 100% of the time. Although I had done M2 in CQWPX earlier this year,
it was the first outing for the station in that category in WW. 

Mike was good enough to make up a new filter for the receive antennas (where we
need to filter both 80 and 160 so that when using the rx antennas in the
presence of the second station, we don't get overload). It performed superbly,
with very low insertion loss, and made LF receive a pleasure.

Conditions seemed "interesting". HF was generally very good - with
the SFI up at 180, but the "A" rose during the contest and was
noticeable later on the Sunday with a rasp on some signals. LF was OK, but we
found (perhaps we weren't on at the right times) that some of the Caribbean
stations were harder to find than usual. Some of the rarer LF DX was hard work,
with unruly calling by Europe. It was also noticeable that the use of split
operation by DX on 80/160 is increasing.  Some truly appalling signals from
parts of Europe, with wide clicks and hum modulation rather spoiled what is
otherwise a most enjoyable contest. 

Our strategy was to run during the day on the highest frequency band possible,
so using the propagation when it was available. In the night, it was the
condition of 40m that would influence how we played things, but in the end 40m
delivered, staying open all night without the absorption that sometimes can
ruin propagation. We made all zones on 40m and our highest country score ever
on that band. Zone 34 proved elusive for us on 20/15, which limited the zone
score there to 39. Whether we got the balance of running vs multing right, I
don’t know �" we used the facility to run two separate band maps on
each computer to monitor four bands at once �" and this sometimes helped
being first into the mult-fest. In choosing the M2 category, we had an eye on
the G record (10.1M) and the UK record (12.1M), and at 14.7M seem to have
passed those with some to spare - unless someone else this year has done the
same.

As for Murphy, we had just one bad moment, when the 80m dipole went u/s late
Sunday afternoon. I thought it must be a halyard break, but we ventured out to
find everything in place. In the end, we worked out that the centre of the 160
and 80 dipoles (at right-angles up the tower) must have been touching, as a
result of a halyard perhaps slipping a little bit. Re-tensioning the two fixed
the issue.

The one other issue which bugged us a little was keying delays. I have just
upgraded the computers here, and now can't use LPT control of the Microham and
EZMaster. Both now use USB, and this seems to introduce a random delay when
pressing a function key. Whether this is inherent to the software, or is a
result of processing power being diverted to other things - like the CAT or the
TelNet - needs to be investigated. I wonder if others have seen and cured this
issue ?

Overall we ended up with 14.6M points and about 7500 QSOs.   Details below.

Thanks for all the Q’s �" it was fun.

Don, G3BJ


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