[UK-CONTEST] CQWW at GM4YXI
Dr K Kerr
k.kerr at abdn.ac.uk
Fri Nov 29 10:40:32 EST 2002
Late as usual!
My partner in radio crime, Chris 'WOJ, took the chance to head south to the
'Caribbean-like' propagation of GD-land for CQWW SSB (Well, they have palm
trees, for sure), so another trip to Shetland was not an option. As it
happens, had we tried that this year, we may not have arrived in time for
the contest. The ferry was diverted and delayed due to bad weather around
the time we would have travelled.
So it was CQWW SSB for home for the first time since 1998 and my first
attempt at SOAB in the event. I decided to run with our club call, rather
than my own personal mouthful. I tried hard through September to get all my
antennas fixed up....but failed. On my return from 9M2 land in September,
160, 20, 15 and 10m all seemed to have developed faults and I felt I had to
do something about antenna spacing to try to reduce QRM if I was to attempt
SO2R. The 20m beam has been a real source of weakness and had failed on me
during the last 2 ARRL SSB events. It took a while but I think I have the
electrical problem solved. (Part of the trouble is that the beam seems to
attract millions of starlings from the farm buildings nearby and the
bird-sh** and flexing of the elements messes up the gamma match. Anyone
know how to get rid of the birds??). I was still running about the Friday
before the contest installing beverages and tuning my 160m inverted-L. All
this preparatory antenna work the week prior to the event seemed to take
place in a gale and monsoon rain. I ended up with the following:
160m Inverted -L (vertical bit only 60ft) plus 2 elevated radials
80m Full quarter wave vertical, 2 elevated radials and about 1Km of wire
ground screen. This is a new installation about 90m from any other antenna.
40m quarter wave vertical, 4 elev radials and ground screen, 40m delta loop
(waste of time and effort....added nothing to station) and second new
quarter wave vertical with 2 el radials 80m from any other antenna. All
this was to use 40m on the 2nd radio, without QRM.
20m 3el yagi at 70ft
15m 4 el yagi at 60ft (under 20m)
10m 5 el yagi at 50ft (separate support)
Beverages to NA and to Asia.
I really felt 'up' for this one....being on holiday prior to the contest
weekend no doubt helped. The whole event is a bit of a blur now, some good
DX around but condx were a bit disturbed and 10m was well down on 'normal'
. The only thing that the auroral conditions did do was provide a short
path opening into JA on 20m just before midnight Saturday. I managed to
keep going all Saturday and still felt quite OK on Sunday at 0130 when I
decided on 90mins sleep, otherwise I would not have survived Sunday. I was
just getting back into the chair just after 0300 when the second radio amp
decided to flash and give out a burning smell. This completed my
reawakening! Time lost opening up the box, finding nothing and getting
everything hooked up again. It worked fine to the end of the contest. Apart
from this two and a bit hours of down time, the rest of the lost time would
be a few 15min 'comfort' breaks. I don't know what period of time must
elapse before CT considers it 'off' time. I tried to work the second radio,
searching for mults or just Q's, but it ain't easy. I really is a boost for
moving mults however, and I was pretty aggressive about this even on day
one. I was gratifying how many were willing to move....some guys even
offered without being asked! Thanks to everyone for that. I was quite
pleased with the outcome, for a first SOAB in CQWW, and learned plenty. The
second 40m vertical was useful to reduce crud on the other radio, but not a
crucial addition. I do not use filters or stubs and find I can live with
the interference, even with the 20 and 15m yagis 3m apart. As (if) I get
better at SO2R, I may become more critical and have to get rid of the minor
QRM. The beverages are, without doubt, the most significant advantage over
my 'usual' station.
Call: GM7V
Operator(s): GM4YXI
Station: GM4YXI
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Ellon, Scotland
Operating Time (hrs): 43.5
Radios: SO2R
QSOs Zones Countries
160: 109 6 42
80: 488 13 69
40: 520 19 78
20: 877 35 112
15: 1052 37 121
10: 1159 30 120
Total: 4205 140 542 Total Score = 5,965,454
November passed quickly. I had to remove the second 40m
vertical......'Boss' didn't appreciate antenna in the middle of the garden,
and disconnected the delta loop. My preparation for the CW event could
scarcely have been less. I got home on Friday night feeling shattered, had
planned a bit of sleep before the off, but that was torpedoed by the
discovery that my beverages were kaput. I trudged off (obligatory downpour
and gale of course), up to the ankles in mud in the cultivated field, to
discover that my neighbour farmer, who knew about the antennas and said he
would let me know if he needed them moved, had obviously dismantled them
both, then tried to join things together again. Not surprisingly, he
failed! In addition, he had succeeded in mangling the feeder in some
machine. I wasn’t happy! Repairs in the rain.
Not a good start. I knew that, for family reasons, I was not going to be
able to participate in the contest on Saturday night
7pm to just after
midnight as it turned out. I didn’t expect to also have to miss 0930-1200z
Saturday morning due to ‘work’. Conditions were clearly worse even than
SSB. No JA on 10m this time and 10m zone 3 (which amounted to only about 4
stations in the SSB leg)
came via a couple of skew path QSO’s at about s1 (5NN of course ;-)) I
managed Zone 4 and 5 on the first night on 160m but at other times, I would
hear Caribbean DX buried underneath a loud Eu, so no chance. 80m went well,
though I still missed a lot of mults and I never heard XT2DX on 160, 80 or
40m! 40m is just amazing in all sorts of good and bad ways. Great DX
potential. The NA and JA lp opening was good on Sat morning
until I was
rudely interrupted!
..and you have to like being called by KH0 in the last
hours of the contest. But even on 40CW the QRM was something else and
trying to keep a frequency was interesting. At one stage Sunday night I was
being bounced around the band like a ping pong ball. There is no way those
guys could not hear me! Missing those chunks of time on Saturday left me
short on QSO’s at halfway and with a terrible mult count. I had too much
catching up to do on Sunday and my CW skills deteriorated at an alarming
rate. Despite 11 hours off time, I slept only 90mins (0130-0300 Sunday)
from 0630 Friday morning ‘til contest end. Curiously, I didn’t have the
physical struggle I had on the SSB Sunday, I just could hardly read CW (or
send with the paddles) after about 1700z on Sunday evening! I fear a bad
UBN! This is all probably a reflection of the fact that CW isn’t really
second nature to me
.need to brush up I guess.
My mental decline was temporarily halted by another enormous bang from Amp
2 at about 1800z, so I finished on one radio. I cannot do the SO2R thing to
any extent on CW, but it was handy for passing mults, which I tried a bit
from about mid-Sunday morning onwards
.something else that needs practice!
Some great DX around, by all accounts, though it is sobering to discover
how much of it I missed. (I also succeeded in missing GM on 20 and 15!!) I
thoroughly enjoyed the event and am looking forward to next year.
Call: GM4YXI
Operator(s): GM4YXI
Station: GM4YXI
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Ellon
Operating Time (hrs): 37
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 126 8 43
80: 508 16 78
40: 644 22 77
20: 423 29 77
15: 522 29 77
10: 705 25 80
------------------------------
Total: 2928 129 432 Total Score = 3,278,484
73
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
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