[RTTY] ANARTS

[Phil Cooper]

Hi all,

I also fell foul of not entering my Zone, and then getting flustered when I
saw all contacts were worth ZERO points!
I ended up fiddling last years log, deleteing all the contacts and using
that, but I just could not see where to enter my zone.
Oh well, some things are sent to try us!

I didn't get to start until after Saturday lunchtime, and when I did,
conditions seemed very poor. I could just about see Don AA5AU, but couldn't
work him.
By mid-afternoon, the USA was all but closed for me, but there was an
opening to JA.
I worked an hour or so, then took a break, and then did another hour. I
spent most of Saturday doing that, and decided it would not be worth staying
up (probably a mistake!) but I planned on getting up early on Sunday
morning. As it happens, I didn't quite make it as early as planned, but it
was a a suprprise to see Don AA5AU pounding in on 20m at around 0530. I then
went to 40m, just to see if I could work a few mults from EU, but the only
audible signal was ZL2AMI !!!
Thanks for the contact Bob, it was a real surprise to see you so long after
our sunrise. Back on 20m, I then worked VA7XX, another suprise.
I also saw Doug N6TQS calling CQ, but just couldn't get him to hear me.
Sorry Doug, I did try.
Great to see ET3TK (tnx two bands!) in the contest. I also worked XV1X, and
saw 5U7B, but his pile-up was enormous.

There were plenty of new calls about, and some of them were a pleasure to
work. They had the right exchange, and obviously watched how QSO's are
conducted. There are a few though that could do with learning that calling
over and over, and then after someone else calls, they call again. And then
calling when I was working someone else.
I had quite a few "phantom" callers too! They'd call me, I sent a reply,
they call me, so I repeat the exchange, and then nothing! One or two I would
put down to conditions, perhaps personal circumstances, or whatever, but
this happened many times.

What a shame that some Italian stations refused to play in ANARTS! Some were
good enough to send exchanges for both contests, but I called a few who said
SRI NO ANARTS ONLY ITALIAN. 

I don't know why, but Writelog says I worked 290 calls, but only 289 were
"valid" QSO's. I can't see anything to point out which QSO was invalid,
except that it was on 20m. The only one I can think of is 9A3JB/80, although
that QSO shows 3 points. I had to log it as 9A3JB, and then add the /80, so
that may be the answer.

Anyway, here is my "claimed" score for 290 Q's:

               QSO              Points          DX            Call Areas
80               2                   5                2                    0
40              44                 187            25                   0
20             166               1327           48                   14
15              74                  798           31                   11
10               4                   18              4                     0
TOTAL     290
Mults        135
Continents   6
Claimed Score: 1891350

Operating time: about 13 hours.

I will upload all contacts to LoTW soon, and I will see some of you at
Hamradio in Friedrichshafen in a couple of weeks!
73 de Phil GU0SUP
(from work.............. any queries to my home email pcooper at guernsey.net
PLEASE!)