[UK-CONTEST] GW3NJW ARRL 10 CWHP

[Clive Whelan]

Hi.


QSOs		Mults		Score
517		85		175,780

Win 98 crashed irretrievably on the radio computer for the second time in a 
month on Friday. What hostages to fortune we become when we commit so 
heavily to computer systems. I have had TPTG oscillators more stable than 
this operating system; oh software authors why can we not have Linux 
contest loggers, yup I know chicken and egg?


Soooh after burning the midday oil, the computer was finally up and running 
again at 1600UTC Saturday. Made a token 30 odd QSOs before the band shut, 
so the operation was basically a second day only affair. Since the SSB 
chapter of Contest Cambria was not up for this one, this sadly meant that 
GW7X missed the first eligible SSB/CW event of 2002; would have ben a nice 
little milestone, oh well.


There was little doubt from observed signal levels, both from Europe and 
the USA that conditions were about as good as they have been in this 
sunspot cycle, although this did not seem to be borne out by DX heard, or 
not as the case was here. Since the pressure was off, I did not chase the 
game, but largely let the game come to me, which did nothing for the final 
half baked score.

The contrast between doing a 7Mhz SB entry in CQWW a couple of weeks ago, 
and this little jaunt was almost palpable. I was reminded of sporting 
exploits in days of yore. On the one hand a pleasant "village green" 
cricket game in June with "pop" and cream cakes at tea, and on the other, a 
dark day in January playing open side wing forward  in the mud, for Local 
Heroes against Cloggers RFC.  Sorry, better go and have a lie down now!


See y'all next year.Keep on doing it UK contesters.


73


Clive
GW3NJW