[UK-CONTEST] CQWW CW P3J SOAB

[Alan Jubb - 5B4AHJ]

Hi guys

Here's a summary of the weekend's operation in CQWW:

Call: P3J
Op:  5B4AHJ
Section: SOAB HP (well not really all bands, mainly 10/15/20)
Operating time: about 32 hours, slept from about 11.00 pm to 0500 local (9pm to 0300z) each day and had friends to dinner Saturday evening.
Rig: FT1000MP plus Quadra.
Antenna C3SS at 11m up plus 40m inverted vee. No antennas for 80/160.
Logging: Writelog

     QSOs QSO points Zones Countries Multipliers  Claimed   Score 
      160m:  0  0 0     
      80m:  1  1 1   
      40m: 40 113 6 24   
      20m: 652 1797 30 89   
      15m: 1019 2889 30 86   
      10m: 681 1920 29 81   
      Totals: 2393 6719 96 281 377 2,533,063     


This was my first semi-serious operation in CQWW and the first with computer keying, so I was not sure what to expect in terms of total score. I made more QSOs than I expected, but was somewhat disappointed in the multiplier totals. There were some obvious omissions on countries and zones. I guess I spent too much time enjoying myself running the pileups and not enough time on S&P. A lesson for next year!

I put a 40m inverted vee up on Thursday, but it didn't perform well at all. In fact it was like pulling teeth! I guess having the apex and feed point near the water tanks (which are on the roof in 5B) was not a good idea, although the SWR was OK.

Next year I will be in my new QTH (hopefully, builder permitting) and will make sure I have some workable LF band antennas. That should improve the score considerably.

I enjoyed using WriteLog for the first tim, although I have a keying problem that happens now and again (too frequently). The CW gets very chopped up. It is obvious when this is happening so I just hit ESC and sent the message again. Very annoying. I think this is an XP problem, although it did seem to be related to what I was doing in WL to a certain extent. Using the context-sensitive enter key, after editing a call after it was first sent, I could almost guarantee the problem would happen when the call correction was sent. I overcame this on the second day by programming a spare function key to send the entire call instead of just the correction, and using this instead of sending just the call correction. This was always OK, very strange. I shall move to WinKey for future operations, which hopefully will solve the problem.

Anyhow, the overall experience was very enjoyable.

Alan
5B4AHJ - P3J - G3PMR