[UK-CONTEST] GM4YXI ARRL 10m contest 2002

[Dr K Kerr]

Hello all,
I always enjoy this one...this year was no exception, though Murphy did his 
best to make it otherwise. I did some rushed antenna preparation (second 
yagi to allow dual direction tx and rx) the previous Sunday. SWR was 
OK...all seemed well. No time to 'smoke' test......how literal that was to 
prove....prior to the event. The numbers looked promising, K low, all quiet 
and the flux rising.

First QSO possible at 0730 and things were going along nicely. Not many 
Asian mults on S&P so I started to run a bit earlier than usual. Rate was 
reasonable and a few VK's appeared early on...encouraging. About 0830 an OK 
station told me that some JA's were calling me but I could hear nothing 
down to my noise floor either direct or on skewed path. I had heard many 
central and eastern Eu stations working JA a bit earlier and even some F 
stations doing so, but I never heard a cheep. Pleased to have Rich 
9M2/G4ZFE call in at 0913 with a good signal. DU also appeared and the UA9 
stations were pretty loud. Maybe the JA's would come along soon............

Noticed grid current meter flicking up where it should not, and the 4el 
yagi I put up the previous Sunday sounded quieter than it should, even 
although it was parked NE. SWR was 4:1 on checking. I did a bit of S&P 
while trying to decide what to do. The status quo was not an option. I 
could reconfigure the whole station for one antenna and fix the problem by 
arc lamp on Sat night, but I had no idea what the weather would be like, or 
go and fix the antenna now, before the band opened west. The single antenna 
option would probably cost me QSO's and mults, 'fix now' would cost me to 
the East but at least I would be OK for the rest of the event. I stopped at 
1000z.

  Lower tower, detect (corrosion where the centre pin of the connector 
'made' with the gamma match, which I should, of course, have checked before 
I put the thing up!), fix, check, raise...back on the air at 1200z. Did I 
miss much? Did the band open to JA?

Second caller was C6ANK , which was good. My sole JA QSO of the weekend was 
with JA6GCE on the long path at 1210. The band opened up quite well to the 
East US, moderately so to the midwest but hardly at all to the west coast 
of NA. Although I had four straight hours averaging 200/hour, I worked CA 
maybe thrice, all very weak and missed ID,WA, AB and BC ( I also totally 
missed The Canadian north, as usual, and both VO1 & 2). The band went out 
very quickly and early at about 1700. By 1730 there were a few strong 
Auroral signals from the Caribbean and NA but they were impossible to 
work...even heard ID and KH6 but they were not hearing me. I later learned 
that the K had jumped to 5 and the aurora oval was bright red and scoring 
9/10!!! Finished with 1200 Q's 53 states/provs but only 79 countries.

Sunday started at the same time and I was aware I had a lot of catching up 
to do to the east. I couldn't figure out if things were better than Sat or 
not. Eu was louder but the UA9's were weaker. I found, or was found by, 
some needed mults from the east but I never had a whisper from JA and I had 
the impression that others were not doing so well in that direction. I 
think the band was still recovering from the 'hit' during the Sat 
evening/night. Signals from Eu were very loud at times but with serious QSB 
and the splatter was tremendous, which made a lot of backscatter QSO's very 
hard going. Apologies to those who called but could not complete...happened 
a good few times. The afternoon was less busy to the US, as you would 
expect, though the band was probably a little better. A few more west coast 
stations appeared, but they were all pretty weak, though I managed the 
missing ID, WA, BC and AB mults, but never made the other Canadian 
absentees! The band stayed 'runable' for a hour longer than Sat but pretty 
well died at about 1815z.

Finished with 2269 valid Q's, 165 mults (108 countries plus 57 
states/provs) for 748,770 pts.

QSO's down on last year by about 380 (15%) but mults up. Score down by 10%.

I agree 100% with Steve, G0AEV .......... ' compared with last year's
contest band opening was later, band closure was earlier and the JA and
north-west USA openings poorer.'

This year's learning point......check those antennas BEFORE the contest!

Station: IC775/IC737, AL1500, 5el mono @ 50ft and 4el mono (huh!) @ 70ft 
both driven, both listened to.

Merry Christmas to all and Best Wishes for 2003.

Keith GM4YXI

------------
Dr Keith M Kerr,
Consultant and Clinical Senior Lecturer,
Department of Pathology,
Aberdeen University Medical School
and Aberdeen Royal Infirmary,
Foresterhill,
Aberdeen,
Scotland, UK,
AB25  2ZD
Tel 01224 552414   Fax  01224 663002
k.kerr at abdn.ac.uk