[UK-CONTEST] M6T (G4PIQ) CQWW SSB Report

Tue Nov 8 14:56:39 EST 2005

Hi Andy, great write-up. And a great score too. I also must congratulate Steve GW4BLE for an amazing score too. I suffer from a syndrome whereby the more good results I see the worse I feel, so the less effort I expend, so the worse I do, so the worse I feel, so the less effort I expend, etc... And this year I entered CQ WW SSB knowing I would feel like that, and intending to take a decent sleep on Saturday night, but not get too phased by it. Obviously a southerly latitude and southerly/westerly aspect to a station makes all the difference... but I can't get over how much! Sunday evening CQ'ing on 40m I thought I'd a problem - a 'run' rate of about 20! It's a pity because my take-off towards VQ9 is brilliant! Makes me wonder is an SO2R set-up is really worth the effort up here!
Well done both (and everyone else who gave it a bash),
Stewart
GM4AFF/GM0F

________________________________

From: uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com on behalf of Andy Cook, G4PIQ
Sent: Tue 08/11/2005 13:01
To: uk-contest at contesting.com
Subject: [UK-CONTEST] M6T (G4PIQ) CQWW SSB Report

   BAND   Raw QSOs   Valid QSOs   Points   Countries   Zones
 ___________________________________________________________

  160SSB     164         164        199        53         8
   80SSB     459         459        610        71        14
   40SSB     686         686       1536        85        22
   20SSB    1427        1427       3332       101        32
   15SSB    1113        1113       2613       103        35
   10SSB     151         151        305        43        16
 ___________________________________________________________

 Totals     4000        4000       8595       456       127

    Final Score = 5011468 points.

Rig : 2 x FT1000MP + Titan + Alpha 87A
Ant
160 : Inv-L, top @ 28m + Inv-V @ 23m
80  : Delta Loop @ 23m
40  : 402CD @ 24m
HF  : KT34XA @ 30m + TH5 @ 24m + A3 @ 26m
Rx  : 180m NW Beverage

Firstly - congratulations to Steve, GW4BLE for giving me a serious
thrashing with much less hardware - very impressive. In short I was just
unable to get anywhere close to the runs of Ws which he achieved during
the event which is very interesting & has given me added impetus to stop
hitting my head against the brick wall of noise which I've always
suffered from this site. However - I don't think I can blame the full
scale of this performance on the noise - something else was very wrong -
perhaps the operator needs more practice!

A couple of folks have asked if I was going to do a write-up for
UK-CONTEST, so I assume some like the rambles & since I'm sitting on a
train I'll do this. If you don't - hit DELETE now!

Pretty limited time for radio right now, but I'd managed to carve out
some time to do the necessary maintenance & to try and make a few
improvements. Many thanks to Darren, G0WCW for helping out with much of
this work. The KT34A tower got a head unit added and the antenna turned
back into a KT34XA, a duff trap on the TH5 got fixed, the feeders to the
402 & 80m loop got fixed, the Inv-L and radials got re-installed, the
500m length of feeder to the beverages got joined up properly & I threw
together a switch box to remote a pair of K9AY loops & a beverage with
antenna selection all along the coax.

A fair bit of this got done on the Friday of the contest and, after I'd
finished building up the receive antenna selection box I left site at
about 9pm to get some dinner & rest with just the Beverage & K9AYs to
install before the contest. In the end managed about 75 mins sleep
before getting up, getting showered, making the essential flask of decaf
tea (no caffine day 1 or week before contest) and driving to site.
Arrived about 45 mins before the off, but it was tipping down with rain
which made the Rx antenna installation slower than planned so - as usual
- first QSOs didn't appear until about 20 minutes into the event. The
K9AYs seemed to have some, but not dramatic directivity, but after about
30 mins they suddenly went very noisy which I think was due to rain
getting into some of the joints in the coax (don't use T-pieces just
because you're short of back-to-back females) & putting an unstable
leakage path across the DC on the coax. They remained useless all
contest, but at least I'd designed for the Beverage to be in the
failsafe position. I wasted 20 mins or so around 0400 having a quick
attempt to fix the problem, but failed.

I started the contest on 40 - running split, but transmitting around
7102. This seemed to work fairly well and conditions were not bad. On
the second radio conditions on 160 didn't seem too bad either & I worked
2 or 3 Carribeen mults. I was hearing stuff, and some in the Carribean
which I couldn't get to hear me, but as usual others were hearing
better. Conditons on 160 at dawn seemed pretty good with W0AIH a decent
signal, but I heard relatively little activity from the West. I think it
was one of those mornings where conditions were good with high angle
antennas - I see VE3PN reporting his Beverages as being non-directional
that day and for me I think the Inv-V was slightly better than the
inv-L.

80 didn't really produce a decent US run, but it was nice to be called
by ZL2UO for a double mult. From 80, it was more or less straight to 15
for a pretty decent run of JA stations which was much better than
expected. There were also a few QSOs to be made on 10 on the second
radio, but the opening was mostly limited to Z16/17 & a few other bits
and pieces. About 1100 I returned to 20 to catch the US run and went
from there to 15 at about 1215. I didn't stay on 15 for long however and
returned to 20 about an hour later since 15 really wasn't flying for me.
Went back to 15 at about 1430 and stayed there till the band appeared to
close - horribly early at about 1530. I then went back to 20 until 15
appeared to re-open about 1700 for half an hour and finished Saturday
without a zone 3 in the log on 15. Needless to say - nothing from the US
on 10 on Saturday. I then managed to stay with 20 till about 2045. Spent
the evening fiddling about between 40, 80 & 160.

Here I began to think about sleep. Having just started a new job which
entailed an audio call at 9.30 Monday morning, I thought it might be
best to grab 90 mins sleep, even thouugh I didn't feel too bad (and
maybe to help with the focus on the second radio on day 2), but I made
this decision a bit late at 0245. Didn't have my normal phone with me to
use as an alarm clock so programmed my PDA to go off as an alarm and
settled down to sleep. Next thing I remember was coming to, thinking -
this must be early - the alarm hasn't gone off - and then checking the
clock and finding it was just after 0600.... Lept to my feet - no chance
to have a wash or make that essential flask of coffee and straight into
the seat kicking myself! The PDA never went off..... Conditions on
Sunday dawn didn't seem as good as those on the Saturday.

Went to 20 rather than 15 to try and add some extra countries to that
band with pretty limited success. Same sort of standard pattern of
openings on 20/15/10 on Sunday, except that I was tuning on the second
radio on 10 at about 1345 and heard K3WW calling CQ. Worked another
handful of US stations on the second radio and ran there for a bit to
the US at about 1400. All zone 5 - no Z4 for me. Kept losing my
frequencies on 15/20 running the US - didn't generally feel that loud.
All day I'd been having trouble with a sticking relay in the amp on the
run radio. By the middle of the US run I'd reached breaking point with
the frustration since the relay would only return to receive about 1
time in 4. Wasted half an hour trying to stick another amp in but had
trouble moving cables, and with the interaction between the keying relay
and the antenna switching / sequencer, and was a bit tired by then to
think too quickly. Ended up sticking the old amp back in and after
having been turned off for 30 mins behaved perfectly the rest of the
contest. However - I lost half an hour of prime run time & a bunch of
frustration around it which was a VERY bad thing.

Went to 40 about 2045 Sunday to try and drag out a few of the missing
mults which was moderately successful. Got both VK zones, 9M2, HS etc.,
but most remarkable was that I ran a bunch of JAs. It was only 21
stations, but nevertheless a real surprise on 40. Struggled to get and
hold a decent run frequency on 80 & flitted a bit between 80 & 160
before moving to 40 for last 50 minutes. Should have been working second
radio harder at this point, but wasn't.

Before the start I'd said to myself that if I didn't make 4000 QSOs and
5M points it would have been a disaster - well - you can see just how
close to those numbers I ended up. I thought I worked the second radio
reasonably well, but analysis shows only about 334 second radio QSOs
yielding 185 mults which is way short of where it could be. Marvelous
fun & I'm desperately keen to be back for a proper go next year, but I'm
told that the impending arrival of a baby will limit my time somewhat
(I've figured that out already!) Not sure whether I'll make it on for CW
or not - if I do I think I'll do Low Power to try and mitigate against
the noise problem.

73,

Andy, G4PIQ

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