[UK-CONTEST] 21-28 MHz Phone

[Andy Summers]

Hi all,

Congratulations Darren on your score! In retrospect the whole thing was a
waste of time for me. I should have stored the brownie points for a better
day!

I had intended to put up a rotatable dipole myself for this one, but failed
to get my arse in gear. Defaulted to the Windom at 30ft, ends at 10ft
originally put up for the 80MCC events. 100W from the Orion. This is a bit
noisy on Rx on the HF bands because it's close to the house. Add to this the
absolutely dire propagation and it added up to just 18 Q's!!!!! You might
think I wasn't trying very hard, and that's partially true, but only because
the lack of stations to hear and CQ-ing into noise caused me to go and do
other things as well. Trouble was, you kept wondering whether there might be
a brief opening and tended to carry on. So not a very productive Sunday at
all.

Actually, AF wasn't too bad. It was the lack of everything else that was the
problem! Nice to be moved by 9J2BO, and surprised that he was louder on
10m - despite no one else to be heard on the band!

Do I dare bother with the CW leg?

I'm no stranger to this contest, and I very much like its format when the
propagation's there. How about extending the bands to include 20m? If the
idea is to encourage activity on 10/15m, then the points could be biased as
such. If there's no propagation on 10/15m it doesn't make for much of a
contest.

One plus point was the trial of N1MM for the first time. It's a very
impressive piece of software. I like how it deals with the sub-Rx on the
Orion.

73,
Andy, G4KNO.