[3830] IOTA G5W(G3BJ) SO(A)24Mixed HP

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                    IOTA Contest

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

Class: SO(A)24Mixed HP
QTH: Woolston
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  CW Mults  Ph Qs  Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
   80:   105      49     128       42
   40:   320      76      89       46
   20:   472      86     179       64
   15:   120      37      50       40
   10:    72      20      54       18
----------------------------------------
Total:  1089     268     500      210  Total Score = 6,254,630

Club: Chiltern DX Club

Comments:

I have always liked the IOTA Contest, as it has something a little different
from chasing DXCC entities or prefixes. Chasing those island groups has some
strange element of excitement about it. Of course the contest is held near high
summer in the Northern Hemisphere, so it’s generally not blessed with
outstanding conditions. But over the years, I’ve tried to support it,
generally with a multi-single operation from home.

This year, it was to be different. I decided to go for a single operator entry,
and chose the full “SOA HP mixed mode” category. In retrospect, probably not
the best decision. As others have commented, conditions were far from normal,
and propagation on the HF bands was pretty dire on the Saturday. Nothing
whatsoever here on 10m until Sunday morning, when there was a short period of
relief when it looked as if the band might open reasonably, but even that
optimism was to be short lived.

I realised that I had not planned a proper strategy for the contest, and that
was a big mistake. The years of entering in the multi-op category had caused me
to forget just how tough the multi-mode single op entry is. In the multi-op
category, of course, you have one station dedicated to working mults, and so
the run station can be pretty focused on “running” for most of the time
(with the occasional foray to work in-band mults). This has an enormous impact
on total QSO numbers, as a review of previous results will show. 

The balance between running and searching for mults in the single-op section is
a more delicate one, and I got it wrong, spending too much time eeking out the
last few mults at the expense of racking up the QSO numbers. Even so, there
were unworked “easy” mults at the end of the contest. So that’s my excuse
for a relatively poor showing this year. I suppose had conditions been better,
it would have been easier/quicker to nail the more distant mults, but some took
quite a bit of time.

What can be said about conditions? Best forgotten, perhaps. It can be
summarised as hard work �" hard to get through (particularly on SSB) and
high noise levels everywhere. The UK was definitely getting poorer propagation
compared to those further South and East.  There were a few moments of sanity
when some nice pacific stuff arrived (E5, VK, ZL, KH6 etc) but I never did find
the elusive T2N that was permanently spotted on the cluster, at times when there
could not have been any 40m propagation to Tuvalu (like mid-day there)! I
suspect someone having fun �" did anyone really hear him? Overnight was
not too bad �" LF was kind of OK, and I managed to stay awake for the
full 24 hours.

Some very big British Isles QSO numbers around �" I hope these were
multi-op stations, but I fear some may be single op who had sorted out their
strategy.
It was great to hear so much activity �" I get the impression that there
were a lot more mults around this year and certainly the British Isles were
well populated with “expedition- style” contest stations on the coastal
islands. 
Congratulations to everyone who made that effort �" that’s what helps
build this contest.  

Thanks for all the QSOs


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