[UK-CONTEST] CQWW 160 & Other stuff from G0MTN

[Lee Volante]

Hi all,

It seems that all the G op's that had a go at 160 are slowly appearing from
the woodwork......   I did better than I've done in the past, but I was only
part time too over Saturday night, and briefly on Sunday night.  So everyone
who's piped up so far had better send a log entry in - or else !!

My main plan for the weekend was to play in the BARTG Sprint with 100w, but
wanted to give CQ 160 a go with my low inverted L, and the linear.  I was
late getting ready, and was still disentangling the inv-L from the trees
when the RTTY contest started at 12.   Attaching and laying radials was a
very hurried affair, but I managed to get them all over the garden before
running inside.

RTTY activity on the Saturday afternoon was good, but like Andy GM8OEG it
was very grim after late evening, and there was not much 'new' activity on
Sunday.  Perhaps the casual operators had been doing 160m and were still
alseep :-)   An amusing diversion was another "not-quite-what-they-intended"
SO2R operation - running 20m RTTY and taking part in my local club's 40m net
on SSB.   After the end I tried 20m and 40m CW in the REF contest, but soon
ran out of enthusiasm.  Besides, there were a few domestic and adjudication
chores that I'd been putting off.

When I'd stopped making progress using RTTY on the Saturday night, I went
tuning up and down 160, and after an hour or so there, and a struggle to
wake up again before dawn on the Sunday, made around 170 CW QSOs without
calling CQ.  I seemed to have missed the reported best conditions to the US
on the Saturday morning, or at the very end, but was glad to work a few
states (actually a new band/mode country for me - one of 7 !), as was VP5
and PJ2.  I didn't realise Steve 'CKP was out in PJ2 until he said 'hello' -
nice one Steve.  MD4K were extremely loud.

I popped back on again for an hour on Sunday night, this time just using the
windom (not propped up) and 100w, and could certainly tell the difference.
I was back to the "don't even bother calling unless they're S9" mode of
operating.  Well done to G3YMC - I'm not sure my antennas are efficient
enough for QRP operation.  I shall call CQ next year.

Ended up with:  205 Q / 41 M / 42394 points in CQ 160, and 471 Qs in the
RTTY.

Last week some folk were querying about the Data Club Championship session.
I used Writelog, and changed between the MTTY plugin, and Andy ZAP's
recommendation of Digipan for PSK (downloaded a whole 30 minutes before the
contest started.)   I had to run Digipan "by hand" and copy calls into
Writelog, but it was not a big problem.   I *do* like software that 'just
works' without needing to read any instructions or twiddle anything.  I
started off on RTTY, which was great for the first 10 or 15 minutes, and
then went quite slow.  I was pleasantly surprised to find some G op's hiding
on PSK, but made my second pass far too late at the end of the contest and
had a little run of DLs, when there seemed to be no-one on RTTY at all.  I
gave a quick report, serial, name and QTH and they seemed pleased with that.
Much more PSK next time I feel.  I was wary of being in "contest mode" with
non-contesters just Hz away, and had RF output and input levels all much
reduced so hopefully was not causing any grief.

What else?  I missed AFS SSB due to spending a fun weekend in Helsinki at
the Contest Club Finland meeting. As an HFCC member I can't really be seen
to say "give AFS SSB a miss" but if anyone fancies a sabattical from the
QRM, I'm sure you'll enjoy the kind welcome from the OH guys, the talks and
presentations, ranging from small station contesting to the biggest of
multi-multi's, and from HF to SHF, and also the very late night socialising
(representatives from 10 DXCC countries emptying a mini-bar in a very
crowded hotel room), the crisp white snow, and not forgetting the very nice
OH ladies (anyone who knows me knows that I just have to mention them)  The
next year will be the 10th meeting and the CCF guys are planning on making
it an even bigger and better event.

Speaking with my local club guys about SSB AFS I was expecting them to echo
the "torment and struggle" type responses, but everyone said that they had
fun.  Perhaps Little pistol = Less stress !

Sorry this has turned into one of those "my life as a contester" emails.  11
contests entered in Jan.  Roll on Feb...

Lee G0MTN