[UK-CONTEST] IOTA - G3BJ (G5W)

[Don Beattie]

There was some plan to do a multi-op effort this year from here, but it didn't come together, and I must admit I had not properly thought through what to do as a single-op entry. A couple of days before the contest I thought Single Op Assisted could be a fun "lazy man's" way of doing the contest, and that was what I planned right up to ten minutes before the start, when I realised that something had gone seriously wrong with the logging programme here (NA) and the band map was not loading packet spots ! So SOA would have simply been the pleasure of seeing the spots move onto the cluster screen, up to the top, and disappear for ever. I gave up this idea, and rashly went to Single Op multimode. I think that was not the smartest decision of the week, as this meant that in addition to having to decide whether to hunt for mults or run, you also have a mode decision to make. 24 hours experience now tells me that multi mode is probably best for the multi op stations in this event, where you HAVE to have a mult hunting station. In the end I think I got the balance wrong between running and mult hunting/mode changing, and the score will have suffered. I've also come to the conclusion that SO2R with split modes is probably not for me !

Anyway, conditions pretty foul on 15/10 but OK elsewhere, and good low static levels on LF generally.  Some big numbers from some of the G entries, so I guess some will have done very well. Good level of activity, although I feel that much of the island activity appeared to be from seriously comprehensive stations. I wonder if there is enough incentive in the rules to encourage folks to pack an IC706/Butternut and go to some more of the remote (or at least not too active) isles. My mult list for Europe shows a concentration of activity on a relatively small number of the European islands.

Anyway, here are the numbers from here (I've lumped CW and SSB together):


G5W (operator G3BJ) Single op unassisted (sadly - see above !)

Band                QSOs        Mults        Points


80                  274          59            1696

40                  400          87            2376

20                  736          97            3552

15                  196          63            1560

10                  27           18            285

Total            1633        324         9471 

Score: 3.068M
   

Usual equipment:    2 x FT1000MP, Quadra and TL922 (SO2R configuration)

10-40 beam at 80 ft, 10-20 beam at 60ft, dipoles, 87ft vertical


73,


Don, G3BJ