[UK-CONTEST] GM7V in WPX SSB 2002

[Keith Kerr]

I guess it it is no accident that it has taken a week for 
me to get round to this. Freud had a theory, regarding 
painful memories!
Ran up to the weekend with high hopes. 10m was in good 
shape, even up to 2230z on Friday night, testing a few 
things with DVK and so on, with USA stations still booming 
in here and runnable. It was therefore a bit of a downer to 
see the K at 4 and the auroral ovals all red and reading 
9.0 at 0545z on Saturday. After the usual struggle with 
backscatter, it was possible to work stations from about 
0630z and in the first 30mins the likes of 9M6BG, YB0A and 
BD5RI all on S&P suggested things were OK. Even heard a JA. 
Started to run from about 0730z and things built up OK. 
XX9TRR and some VK6's appeared and the first JA called at 
0800. So did 3V8BB, who was very weak (?). By 0900 the JA's 
were coming in quite well, in fits and starts, with even 
some semblance of a pileup. HS, DU and 9V1 all suggested 
propagation was still reasonable, especially when YJ0ABR 
called. This continued 'til 1200z, by which time some nice 
DX like H44MS and 9L1DX had called and I was happy with 
563 Q's and 305 mults.....actually ahead of even my 2000 
score and miles ahead of 2001. One thing I had 
noticed.....only VO1MP had called from NA. Absolutely 
no-one else.
It was 1330 before there was any reasonable North American 
presence here but they continued in fits and starts but it 
was clearly an East coast opening, mostly skewed path. 
Anyone with a state lacking an Atlantic coastline was 
struggling to be heard in these northern parts. And so it 
continued. No real pileup, stations in fits and starts and 
most stations weak. I have rarely had to work so hard for 
so long to maintain a QSO rate which was respectable. I 
just managed to maintain 100-150 per hour from 0800-2000z, 
but it was like working EME with QRM! Finished the day with 
some S&P until 2150 when the lights went out.
Sunday had to be better...hadnt it? Wrong! Couldn't make 
myself heard until 0710 and that was a struggle. By 1000 
there were occasional JA's about but really grim sums it 
up. Rates about 30-50 per hour continued, but required a 
real scrape for QSO's, until 1730. There was a slight 
pickup in rate to NA for a couple of hours allowing 80 or 
so per hour but ALL NA QSO's on Sunday were worked skew 
path over the Caribbean/SA. There were some gems in 
among...like C31, EL2 earlier on and KH7R who was peaking 
on the yagi pointed at Argentina! And I had to have a wry 
smile at the irony of the great signal from VP6TK who 
called me at 1859z. Band went out to completely dead in the 
space of 10 mins to leave me with white noise at 
2005z.......and a rather disappointing 2254Q's and 888 
Mults for 4,653,120 pts. Less, even than last year.

Highs....the few JA on Saturday am and some sprinkling of 
nice DX. I still get a buzz being called by the rare stuff, 
even though their relative score impact is less in this 
event. Good to see lots of calls from the UK.

Lows....the rest of the contest! Being called SIX times by 
J69EN. UA6LV's signal.

Only one frequency fight. Hardly surprising since everyone 
was so weak, but when NI2W appeared about 800Hz below me he 
was loud enough to disturb my ability to copy my callers 
who were, universally, 0.5dB above the noise floor. I asked 
if he could move a bit 'cos he was giving me some grief and 
I received a lecture entitled 'This is why they call it a 
contest'. I must have missed that bit in the rules!

Not a weekend for us northeners. Makes me smile to see some 
stations proclaim 'Great conditions' on 3830. All relative 
and down to perspective, I suppose. Time to move to Aruba!

73
Keith GM4YXI (GM7V in WPX SSB)