[UK-CONTEST] ARRL CW - G0MTN

[Lee Volante]

Hi all,

Guess what - yet another part timer !   After previously planning on making
this a near full time effort and booking the following Monday off work, I
was peturbed after getting my small mast stuck after last week's CQ WPX
RTTY.   Eagle eyed residents of my lane could have spotted me by floodlight
hanging off the thing in the dark a couple of evenings last week.   A
salvage operation in the form of Friday off work as well went by the wayside
as a meeting with an external company was pencilled in at work before I
could declare my intentions.   I was wary of actually been secretly pleased
to have an excuse to bottle out and catch up on sleep - I'm still not 'match
fit.'  I must have a word with my boss - work is getting in the way of
contesting !

So I gave up and settled for a Saturday morning fix-it session, and then
just some fun.  After a friend came round to help me sort mine out, we both
then went out to sort out a dipole problem at another friends house.  By the
time I got back, had a bite to eat, I never got started until 2.45pm.

My 'serious' attempts would have been in the low power categories, as I'm
not competitive with the 'real' big guns.  However, as I was just messing
around, I turned the amplifier on to see what happened....

High points:  500 QSOs in the first 5 hours :-)   Turning up when the band
is already open is good fun.  There's no steady build up of rate as if you
were there from when the band opens - it's all go from the off.  Best clock
hour was 127, best last/10 rate was in the 240's.  I've never seen anything
like it from home.  The operators are slick and loud, and hundreds of nice
1x2 and 2x1 calls appeared in the log.  Even the QRS guys are slick - you
just wind the speed down a few wpm and there's still no problem.   I didn't
really bother with the low bands apart from Sunday night - like Nigel I also
had a little flurry of callers on 40m when I arrived for the first time at
about 10pm - again I've never had anything like that before.

Low points:  Stopping nice runs to answer the telephone, cook a decent meal,
and go next door to fix an RFI problem at 4.30pm (prime-time HF) on Sunday.
Having Saturday evening off and going to bed !

Four of the first five announcements of activity on the WWYC reflector for
this contest also indicated they would only be 'part time' entries - it's
not just us then.   Are we just being more considerate of our friends and
family, or getting worse at time managment ?  :-) Surely somebody on here is
going to post 3,000 QSOs and 3 million points and keep the British end up ?
M5X ?  GM3POI ?

G0MTN - SOAB HP - about 17 hours.

10   459  47
15   354  45
20   344  44
40   102  25
80    12   9
160    0   0
Tot 1271 170

648,210 points (200k pts short of last year's low power entry)

TS850 / C3SS @ 9m / Windom @ 8m / HF6V @ 0m

I like the sound of doing the same for SSB - let's have some fun on the high
bands before the good / average conditions disappear.

Lee G0MTN