[UK-CONTEST] M6T (G4PIQ) SOABHP Mixed Unassiated 12 Hour Non expedition Island Raw Score (Still too many sections...)

[Andy Cook, G4PIQ]

Hum - not such a good contest for me, but fun as usual. I decided to do
mixed mode for a change of scene, and to see how close I could get to the
multi-ops - answer - not very!

Score is lower than last year’s SSB only entry (5.07M or so claimed in 2001
vs. 4.79M here). In part this is due to poorer conditions - only 11 JAs in
the log, and in part due to me screwing up operating rather badly in mixed
mode. Found running CW in one ear and SSB in the other a bit more than I
could handle and ended up often stopping the run radio when trying to move a
mult on the other radio. Best move was SK2KW through 8 bands/modes in 5
minutes - shame too late for 80m, but I did have to stop on the main radio
for this sort of stuff. More practice needed here. I never have liked this
moving people from one mode to the other stuff very much - too disruptive.
Would probably prefer the rules to just count mults once per band. Maybe I’
ll blame it all on TR which didn’t quite do what I wanted it to do in mixed
mode
.

Activity seemed very good - especially from casual operators which was
almost a problem for me since the pile / QRM on the run radio was often not
small enough for me to handle 2 radios very effectively. I need to try some
automated switching which lets me leave the run radio in both ears when in
Rx periods on the run radio and mult radio in both ears during Tx periods


Multiplier total is very non spectacular - I had 335 on SSB only last year.
Some will be down to poor 2nd radio / passing performance, some will be down
to the poorer conditions with almost no non-Eu on 10 and very little AS/OC
on 15. A few got-aways - including GU8D on 20m (who couldn’t hear me even
with no pile, but QRM can be like that) and PJ2Y on 80 who I heard and 40
said were looking for me but no sign in the end.

It was obviously a weekend for Murphy visiting rotator controllers. Like
Dave, I had a rotator controller stop working - in my case a few hours in. I
also had a spare to hand! An hour before the start of the contest I decided
to change the fan in one of the amplifiers since it was getting very noisy
and had almost seized on me in the ARRL (and I haven’t used it since then).
Easy enough job - only half an hour, but when I put it back together I
placed the HT feed only about 1cm from the HT ckoke. When I went on 15 I
couldn’t figure where this burning smell was coming from till I looked into
the PA and, even with just 100W or so, could see arcing between the choke
and HT cable. Only took me 10 mins or so to fix that!

Was a bit hot - shack temperature dropped to below 30 degrees at night, but
ran at 36-37 degrees for most of the contest.

Rig  : 	2 x FT1000MP + LK800 + Alpha 87A
Ants : 	80m : Delta Loop @ 23m
		40m : 402CD @ 24m
		HF  : TH5 @ 24m + KT34A @ 15m + A3 @ 26m

Raw score attached below. I'm having some trouble getting TR to do what it
should do to clean the multiplers up so there's probably more amis here than
usual. POST seems to decide that lots of QSOs aren't mults when they should
be - looks like it's picking up the wrong type of contest. Time for a mail
to the TR reflector...

Maybe see you all in the HF Championship next weekend - looks like
girlfriend will still be away for work, so I may have an unexpected weekend
to do radio even after WRTC and IOTA
..

Andy


   BAND   Raw QSOs   Valid QSOs   Points   Mults
 __________________________________________________

   80CW      154         154        906      36
   80SSB      81          81        639      30
   40CW      283         277       1335      41
   40SSB     204         202       1242      49
   20CW      373         367       1653      41
   20SSB     500         498       2622      74
   15CW      247         244       1212      36
   15SSB     219         218       1410      50
   10CW       68          68        384      14
   10SSB      95          93        627      27
 __________________________________________________

 Totals     2224        2202      12030     398

Final Score = 4787940 points.