[UK-CONTEST] BERU 2005

[G3WPH]

I decided to play for the John Dunnington trophy (100 watts and single element antenna).

Band    QSO    Bonus

80        30        20
40        49        39
20        74        53
15        41        32
10          6          5
---------------------------
Total    200      149

TX/RX:                  FT1000MP
Ant:                     40 metre long inverted L at 17 metres
Logging S/W:       SDC (Win)
Claimed Score:     3980


Some observations.

1. I was going to use the 10/15/20m sections of a 14AVQ ground plane on the roof for the top three bands, but when I came to put it together late Friday afternoon, I discovered an open in the 10m trap.  Stripped it down but when I disconnected the coil from the element, the end turn broke away - a quick rebuild with thick copper wire failed to give me a solution that I could get to resonate.  As it was going dark I decider to use the aluminium to get some extra height in the inverted L.

2. The 40m long inverted L worked out extremely well on TX, with the exception of ZS75PTA on 10m I worked every station I called.  Rx is another matter - other G stations were obviously hearing much better than me - I guess it's the problem of verticals being very susceptible to local noise pickup. Perhaps I should investigate dipoles for the top 3 bands - other suggestions?

3.  I had been going to use N1MM logging but tried SDC (Win) at the last minute and found the keying (direct from the serial port) has been significantly improved.  During the contest, which is mainly S&P for my class of station, I thought quite a bit about Jim Martin's (MM0BQI) comments on this group about the bandmap in N1MM an decided it would save much time is listening for the identification of stations I've already worked.  Perhaps I'll volunteer to add the BERU module to N1MM. 

4. With the exception of two half hour sleeps in the operating chair between 0300 and 0500 I operated the whole contest. But boy was it slow at the end! the last 7 hours produced just 23 QSOs - those stations I could hear I had already worked.  What was frustrating was hearing Andy, Dave and Don working stations I couldn't hear.

5. This is one of the best contest's in the calendar

73

Mike
G3WPH.