[UK-CONTEST] GW7X IARU SOCW

[Clive Whelan]

[ Second posting, first seems to have vapourised. Excuse the 
typos, wrote it after about 30 hours without sleep]



                    IARU HF World Championship

Call: GW7X
Operator(s): GW3NJW
Station: GW7X

Class: SO CW HP
QTH: Cardiff
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Mults
---------------------------
  160:    18    0      18
   80:    77    0      29
   40:   257    0      40
   20:   643    0      55
   15:   340    0      40
   10:     9    0       6
---------------------------
Total:  1344    0     188  Total Score = 916,876

Club: Contest Cambria

Comments:

IARU 2002, what can I say? I really wasn't supposed to be on 
parade, and in some ways, wish I had not been.

In early May, my Westie bitch, Maggie, was mated, and a happy 
event was expected in the NJW household on July 11th. This meant 
that IARU, IOTA, and probably WAE CW would be off limits for me. 
In the event, mother nature took a hand, as she often does, and 
it transpired from a scan that there would be no puppies on this
occasion. I had already declared ny non-availability to Contest 
Cambria for the aforementioned events, and Ed/G3SQX had taken up 
the challenge of IOTA, by scheduling an expedition to the Isle 
of Arran, EU123, when GW7X will become GM7X for 24 hours later 
this month.

However nobody had taken up the IARU challenge, and it was with 
reluctance that I picked up the baton. In view of the scenario 
described, I had decided to take the opportunity to ugrade my 
antenna system. I live in a conservation area, which means that 
all antennas are notionally proscribed, but I have a pair of
Butternut HF9Vs nestling amongst the trees, away from prying 
eyes. The compost heap provides further camouflague for a DX88 
vertical used on the S&P radio, and
on the chimney, below the TV antenna for obvious reasons, is a 
212ft centre fed doublet, with its ends drooping to about 15ft. 
This serves for 160m, and also fires well to the West, off its 
ends on 28Mhz, one of which is generally to the
West. That is to say, it does so when the band is open, a rare 
occurence of late! The pair of Butternuts are spaced 40ft on a 
NE/SW axis, and can be operated broadside or end-fire on 14 and 
7Mhz. The broadside mode works well on 14Mhz, and the end fire 
ditto on 7Mhz. On other bands, there is little to no advantage. 
This setup is modest by any standards, and qualifies me 
handsomely for the antenna challenged brigade! However I decided 
that I could add another Butternut, in an equilateral triangle, 
in a sort of W1CF array, to provide extra compass directions, if 
little extra gain. This antenna is already erected, and Iam 
still trying to get my head around the switching and phasing 
arragements. I speculated that there would bound to be some 
parasitic effect from the extra radiator, on one band or other. 
It became clear from casual listening that this was deefintely 
the case on 21Mhz, and EZNEC modelled this well. The effect was
broadly one of a reflector to the West/North West, but equally 
left large holes in the polar diagram in the direction of 
Europe. With conditions as they are on the North American path, 
this seemed serious.

At the start of the contest 28Mhz was virtually dead, and 21Mhz 
did not sound encouraging. I quickly became aware that I was 
close to the back of the queue in every pile-up on 21Mhz, and 
running was not a viable proposition. Thus it was after 3 hours, 
that I had already lost over 150 QSOs. compared to the 2001
event. What should I do? I did think seriously of quitting there 
and then, but knew I'd never live it down. Since the rot had 
alteady set in, and since I genreally do not make the mults that 
I should. despite SO2R, I decided *not* to chase the QSO game, 
but to comcentrate on the mults for a change. The QSO target
continued to fade in the distance, until it was time to go down 
to 14Mhz, when they started to come back a bit, and overnight I 
managed to cut the deficit to 45 QSOs down. However come 
morning, and time to get back on 21 and 28Mhz ( 28 no chance!), 
it all went pear-shaped again, and I ended the session off 
almost 150 QSOs. However the mults were several up, on this 
reeduced tally, so some benefit must have accrued from the extra 
SO2R effort. The overall final score was only
down 9,000 points out of 925,000, so I suppose I have to be 
pleased about that in the circumstanes. Of course it does not 
pay to be a hostage to fortune in the
antenna department, but the received wisdom, is that antenna 
work should be done in the summer. However having been at turns, 
frozen, and soaking wet over the month of June, I do now 
question such wisdom!



Station:
______

Run radio TS870S, Alpha 78
HF9vX2, 212ft inverted vee doubley at 30ft maximum

S&P radio TS870S, FL2100Z
Hygain DX88

Writelog 10.30, W5XD keyer/SO2R box
Home brew phasing box



73


Clive
GW3NJW
Contest Cambria
http://www.gw7x.org