[UK-CONTEST] Rus DX ZC4DW SO CW LP

[Dez in Cyprus]

                    Russian DX Contest

Call: ZC4DW
Operator: ZC4DW (G0DEZ)
Station: ZC4DW

Class: SO CW LP
QTH: Eastern Sovereign Base Area
Operating Time (hrs): 23:15

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:    67     35
    80:  137     59
    40:  233     95
    20:  406     99
    15:  264     92
    10:  322     84
-------------------
Total: 1429   464  Total Score = 4,959,690

Club: Chiltern DX Club

Comments:

Really fun contest, lots of Russians to work, but not so much DX. Maybe
BARTG RTTY contest claimed many of the DX stns.

Delighted to work all time new band/country, USA on 160m. In fact during the
short opening I managed to work 14 USA stations on Top Band. It certainly
made for an exciting weekend.

Got a phone call from my YL in England during the contest, she told me that
she had just ordered her wedding dress!
I then tripped over my head-phone lead whilst walking back to the rig, and
couldn't concentrate on my Morse for the next couple of hours! ;-)

I made some alterations to the antenna just a few days before the contest,
(that is my style). I like to test the modified antennas in contest
situations. The antenna is a horizontal delta-loop, 30 feet above ground, so
lots of high angle radiation. Each leg of the  triangle is 200 feet long, so
I have 600 feet total wire fed with a balanced system. It tunes from 160m -
10m, although on 10m I used a simple 1/4 wave groundplane.

There were some big scores going around, so I think a few records might be
broken. Hoping that after the log checking my score is good for a new SO CW
LP record. Oh, this was with NO dx-cluster either. Spent about 85 percent
running, 15 percent search & pounce.

VP6DI had a ridiculous split on 15m Sunday morning, to take up half the cw
band was surely unnecessary. He hardly identified
himself which is probably the best way to bring out the 'band police''.
Whilst briefly cq-ing 1 KHz down from VP6DI, a 'policeman'
told me to QSY. 1000 Hz is a lot of space on CW. My rate was good until
another 'policeman' started calling cq cq cq cq cq de zc4dw, right on top of
VP6DI 21.020 I honestly can't see what satisfaction this gives people. I
thought it would be a good move to QSY to 10m and pick up the rate again,
leaving zc4dw pirate to continue being a nuisance on 21.020.

Rig: Yaesu FT-1000mp
Pwr: 100 W
Ant: Horizontal Loop
Ant: 10m gp