[UK-CONTEST] 80m CC CW - MM0BQI

[Jim Martin - MM0BQI]

In preparation for this series of contests I built a loaded dipole to cover
40/80m from the article by Vince, G3TKN, in the October RadCom.
It's nice not to have to clamber on the flat roof in gale force winds to put
up the HF2 and the neighbours have not noticed the loading coils I added to
my existing 40m dipole to make it dual band.  There is no loss of
performance on 40m and on 80m I can work NA and Asia if conditions are
reasonable. During the recent OKDX and SARTG RTTY contests I worked all over
EU, NA and most of the UK with my 50 watts. The dipole runs north/south from
below the eaves, six feet off the flat roof and then slopes to fifteen feet
at the bottom of the garden. Not ideal but it gets me on the air and causes
much less TVI than the HF2.
I was raring to go at 20.00 but conditions here were more like 2m than HF.
In the first half hour I worked five stations with G3KLH and G3TKF being
audible for most of this time at about S6.  Local noise is about S5 in the
evening and S2 in the morning.  The other stations I marked on the bandmap
and kept coming back to them to find their calls and to see if they could
hear me.  GM4AFF was audible at S7 throughout the contest.  From about 20.50
I camped on 3.559 and called CQ.  Only one reply, from a local, during this
time and no other stations heard during frequent sweeps of the band.
Not a great start to the series but hopefully the first of many forays onto
80m without risking life and limb!
FT1000MP, 50w, 80m loaded dipole, N1MM software and microKEYER.
73
Jim  MM0BQI

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