[UK-CONTEST] Run Freq on 40m/My impressions on CQWW

[johndunnington]

Paul you took the words right off the screen..

A few folks are aware I recently aquired an Orion and spent last weekend
putting it through it's paces with the MP-1K and a K2 alongside.Up to 24-hrs
before the contest I had not expected to even get near the rig but
circumstances changed although any serious effort was out of the question as
other plans had been made earlier when I agreed to loan the shack and
antennas for the weekend.

The MP is fully fitted with 250Hz 500HZ 1.8Khz pairs of Inrad Filters but no
Roofing filter..
    Orion has 20Khz 6Khz 2.4Khz 1.8Khz 1Khz and 500Hz Roofing filters plus
Fully Variable DSP final IF.
    Appropriate roofing filters are selected by mode and in Auto Mode by
Bandwidth as set by DSP. So I'm pretty sure
    running with a 1Khz DSP BW on CW you are using the 1Khz frontend roofing
filter. Go down to 500Hz and you have the
    500HZ frontend. What joy when compared to the MP. At times I found
myself with 1Khz B/W in without even realising.

Two things are very noticable narrow filter losses are reduced by not using
dual 250Hz Filters a-la MP and how much quieter 40m sounds (or any band for
that matter) on the Orion. No adjacent rattles and squeaks, and suddenly you
have gaps between stations even on 500>750 Hz BW that you could drive a
double decker bus through. One of my initial worries was that you create a
hole to climb into but can the other guys either side live with my signal.

I spent what time I had on the bands in either S/P Mode or chasing cluster
spots in the big pileups testing not only the Orion but the rebuilt antenna
farm on 160/80/40. Result more than satisfied 110C/27z on 80m, 92C/26Z on
40m, 62C/16z on 160m.Having taken note of what else was wkd by other UK
station I reckon there was something like 120 DXCC entities on 80m this past
weekend. Low point (there was a couple) hearing the likes of A52CDX, B1Z,
BV0J calling running stations on 160m never to be hrd again.

Monitoring spots and their originating station shows several prominent
stations spotting choice Dx which presumably had called them as it was their
run QRG. Initially I put it down to N1MM operator choice spot wkd stations
selected but in time I came to the conclusion there was more it attracted
stations to their run QRG.

Without mentioning callsign several UK big guns in the contest were called
in some cases twice by rare dx stations on 80m with no response and they
carried CQ'ng, some were also guilty of the no break syndrome not giving
people a chance to call them. Our friends in GM/GW seemed to attract more DX
that mundane G's or perhaps they have bigger antennas?
An interesting weekend to say the least from many angles inc being a SWL
again.

One thing is certain Ten Tec have moved the goalposts forward but at a
price. Mine is second hand otherwise I would still be using the MP. Sorry
Chris but you cannot have it on loan..too big for your desk..

Cheers

John G3LZQ