[RTTY] GU0SUP SARTG - all band - low power

[Phil Cooper]

Hello all,

Well, it seems to me that we have all been fairly lax about reporting
claimed scores and stories on this reflector post-contest - me included!

So, come on chaps, write something up and post it here!

I had planned to make an effort for SARTG this year, but various things got
in the way.
Firstly, on Friday, we had the hottest day of the year, (it was 21C at
0530UTC!) and it reached over 30C during the afternoon. Add that to a day at
work sat by an oven at 260C, I felt less than lively when I finished work.
OK, I decided to get up early and spend a few hours at the end of the first
session, but sleep came late on Friday evening, and then I overslept.
So, plan B was to start at 1600 and work as much as possible before having
to go out with family on Saturday evening. I was there, but what happened to
the bands? Absolutely useless.
I managed 2 stations on 10m, a few on 15m and not much on 20m to start with,
but out of nowhere was Bud VA7ST with a good signal. I also bagged HS0JZU
and K9OM, plus a couple of W3/4's and the rest was EU.
Sunday morning saw me up and ready to start at 0800, and I thought I would
hit 15m and work some JA's, but all I managed was one LA and one OH.
40m proved to give a better rate, but it soon died, but not before I worked
W2YC at 0807UTC, some 3 hours after dawn. How did that work?
I spent most of the day calling CQ, but did suffer from a large number of
folk who seem to think it is just fine to pick a frequency and call CQ
without listening. What ever happened to "QRL??" ?
Had a few nice runs, but most lasted about an hour, then just faded away.
Some folk obviously just saw a spot for me, and kept calling, despite the
fact that they weren't strong enough for me to decode. Several kept calling
even when I was working someone else, which made it just that little bit
harder.

To make things a little more difficult for myself, I was running under 100
watts. 
As I don't have an amp, I decided to enter class E, and then decided to see
how I could do with around 75 watts. Interestingly, I worked everything that
I could hear and called. When running CQ, I may have lost a few W/VE's that
struggled to hear me, but I had quite a few call, so maybe not.

At 1600UTC, I was surprised to see so many stations still working in the
contest! Some were still at it at 1605UTC. I noticed because I was saving my
log, exporting the various files etc, and was just watching the band. 
I also wonder how many will claim ZD7VC as a contest contact. He was NOT in
the contest, but a large number of folk worked him and sent him a serial
number.

So, here is what I managed to log:
Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Pts   Mults
------------------------------
   80:     0        0        0
   40:    32    325      18
   20:   149   1690     45
   15:    37    480      27
   10:     2      20        2
----------------------------
Total:  220  2515    92  Total Score = 231,380

Thanks to all for the contacts, and the patience at times when repeats were
needed.
My log is already on LoTW, but if you need a paper card, I can do that too.

73 all

Phil GU0SUP



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