[UK-Contest] SSB Field Day Claimed Score

[Andy Summers]

Callsign:  M0CAM/P                      Total Claimed Score:      254,004


Contest: IARU Region 1 SSB Field Day    Date: 6-7/9/03

Mode: J3E   Single/Multi Op:  Multi    Section: Restricted

Group Name: Granta Contest Group

Location: Park Farm, Gt. Chesterford, Essex.


Band         160m     80m     40m     20m     15m     10m    Total

Valid QSOs      0     141     139     163      74       2      519

QSO Points      0     675     607     563     229       8     2082

Bonus/Mult.     0      16      29      44      31       2      122




TX/RX: FT1000MP
Power:  100W
Antennas: Rotatable 15m Double Extended Zepp @ 50ft
Logger: Writelog 10.40J
Operators: G0WAT, G4AXX, G4CWH, G4EAG, G4KNO
Soapbox:

This year saw us welcome Paul G0WAT as a guest operator, we all got on
very well and look forward to having Paul join us again in future events.
We were looking forward to using our newly developed auto-ATU. In theory
this would provide instant QSY without the need to transmit to tune,
unlike the previously used SGC Smartuner. We also reckoned it would be
lower loss on 80m, the main underperforming band for us. Unfortunately,
and despite prior testing, we managed to set fire to the antenna side
capacitor bank PCB. Reluctantly therefore we reverted to last year's
antenna arrangements. Very disappointing.

On the logging side, one of the PC's now being an XP machine means that
before every contest we spend several hours getting WL to network properly.
We also lost more than half an hour's operating in total with networking
re-starts - not a problem previously experienced with WL.

Conditions weren't too great on the Saturday. No opening to JA on 15m and
10m dead except for two Q's at 19:30. We were concerned that 15m might not
be open again and so concentrated on that band. As it was, 15m did open to
JA on the Sunday morning, providing a useful drip feed of Q's. As expected,
80m in particular was the problem band. We notice that our competitors are
usually behind us on Q's at midnight but they claw that back principally on
80m by the time 20m opens again on the Sunday.

Throughout the contest we were comparing our Q total against what we thought
was last year's log. Only after the contest did we realise we were looking
at the 2001 log when propagation was far superior! Against 2002's log we're
about 25,000 points better off. Considering we got a 10m opening last year,
there’s hope.

WX was generally good. It did chuck it down early Saturday evening which
caused us some problems with local arcing noise. We still don't know where
it was coming from but it did create S7 noise on all bands for some time,
though the MP noise blanker did a good job.

73,
Andy, G4KNO.