[UK-CONTEST] G3AB CQWW CW SOSB/20/HP

[Andy Chadwick]

  CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: G3AB

Class: SOSB/20 HP
QTH: North Yorkshire
Operating Time (hrs): 35

Summary:
  Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
   160:
    80:
    40:
    20: 2325    37      125
    15:
    10:
------------------------------
Total: 2325    37      125  Total Score = 762,210

Club: Chiltern DX Club

Comments:

My first serious bash at CQWW CW from the UK. In the past I've mainly 
been on the DX end from various spots such as ZD8, 5W1, 8Q7, V47, 9G5, 
5V7, XU7 and  9L1 for this contest.  It's a completely different ball 
game being at the G end, but still great fun.

Due to John's illness I had to cancel the plan to operate from G3LZQ's 
on 80m SOSB. I was looking forward to using John's magnificent 80m 4 
Square again after having a taste of using it in the IARU contest 
(GB5HQ). In the end I made a last minute decision to try SOSB 20m.

Equipment :

Rig:  FT-1000MP  Amp: Acom 1000.
Ant:  Force 12 5BA @ 50ft

Just the one radio and one antenna - I really should have made the 
effort to put up at least a dipole for the band to give some flexibility 
and diversity. Having to swing the beam got tiresome. It would have been 
nice to have switched beams like the big guns - not to mention SO2R - 
maybe one day!!  The MP and Acom amp performed flawlessly as did K1EA's 
CT running on an old laptop.

Band conditions seemed quite good.  I took a break on Saturday evening 
when the rates slowed down and quit the contest early at about 21z on 
the Sunday as conditions deteriorated and I felt a Chinese takeaway 
coming on :-)

Missed zones 12, 37 and 39.  I did hear XQ6ET (Zone 12) on Saturday - 
S&Ping but he got away despite me chasing him up the band!   No other 
Zone 12 stations (CE) heard at all.  TO4WW (Zone 39) was heard but I 
just couldn't crack the pile up at the time. Nothing heard from Zone 37 
at all.

Highlights were being called by ZS4TX and VU2UR on Sunday evening  - 
both for Zone multipliers that I would have otherwise missed!  Seems odd 
that countries such as ZS, VU and CE were so poorly represented in the 
contest (on 20m at least).

Spent an eternity listening for some DX stations to announce their calls 
Zone 33 seemed to be a particularly bad area for this!

All in all a great weekend.

73

Andy



-- 

Andy Chadwick
andy at g3ab.net