[UK-CONTEST] BERU 2004 G4PIQ/P

[Andy Cook, G4PIQ]

                    RSGB Commonwealth Contest, CW

Call: G4PIQ/P
Operator(s): G4PIQ
Station: G4MRS

Class: Open HP
QTH: JO02PB
Operating Time (hrs): 23.5
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
   80:   40
   40:   91
   20:  112
   15:   77
   10:   32
------------
Total:  352  Total Score = 6,420

Club:

Comments:

Bonuses by band

80   24
40   58
20   66
15   56
10   29
Total BCAs = 135

Round 1 (last year) may have gone to me, but, without knowing Dave, G4BUO's
score, I'm pretty sure that Round 2 will have gone to him! An interesting
contest that seemed pretty slow in patches, yet I enjoyed it again and am
keen
to do it again next year which must say something! My excuses are that I
must
have operated like an idiot (not that much of an excuse!) to miss stuff like
ZF2NT on 20m, VE6JY on 40/15 and to only land up with 2 x 5B4 on 40/80. I
had
what seemed like much worse inter radio QRM than usual which meant the I
spent
much less time tuning around using the 2nd radio than I should have done - I
even had instances of the non-obvious problems like transmitting on 21.015
and
getting huge sproggies on 14.010 with nasty noise sidebands all round it
which
made it very hard work with everyone down at the bottom end of the bands and
under the noises!

Conditions definitely down from last year - missing all of VE4/5/6 on 15m -
I
think a lot of what I did work on 15 was skew path, and the stuff I worked
on 10
was very definitely skewed - Nigel, VP9/G3TXF took the ESP level QSO prize -
sorry it took me so long to get the serial number, but it did get easier
when I
found that he peaked almost 210 degrees from me! Got very frustrated with my
noise floor on 80 again - could hear folks calling but just not copy them
and
thanks to everyone for their patience while I tried to make sure that I had
the
numbers and callsigns OK. I put up a second beverage to the NE this time to
take
advantage of that great short path opening on 80 to Oceania - ho ho - worked
precicely 2 VK6 stations only - but it did point out to me just how noisy my
NW
beverage was (in fact the Tx antenna + noise cancelling box was quieter), so
I
need to try and find a location where I can put the NW beverage which is
further
away from the noisy buildings.

Only one casualty this contest - a burnt up PL259 barrell which got water in
on
the 2nd radio HF antenna - I went straight to this with a pair of cutters
when
the SWR went through the roof on that antenna - much better just to twist
the
cables together.......

Thanks for all the QSOs everyone

73,

Andy, G4PIQ

Rig : 2 x FT1000MP + PAs
Ant : 80m - Delta Loop @ 23m
      40m - 402CD @ 23m
      HF  - TH5 @ 24m + KT34A @ 18m + A3 @ 26m (2nd radio)
      160m NW Beverage + 120m NE Beverage