[UK-CONTEST] CQWW CW G3WW SOAB LP

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 BAND  QSO    DXC    CQ 
--------------------------------------
  160     204        45        7  
    80     440        62      13  
    40     301        74      21     
    20     378        58      20    
    15     182        53      22     
    10       39        25        7  
--------------------------------------
TOTAL  1544  317      90 
=====================
TOTAL SCORE : 971,102

Operating time  : 40h 14m

76 % Search & Pounce
24 % Runs (>10 QSOs)

First time in CQWW CW (at least from G) for quite a while so didn't know what to expect
during the weekend plus hardly been QRV since moving QTH so band condx were another unknown.

When Tom, M0EDT offered the use of his doublet and home for the weekend I duly accepted.
I knew for certain at least the cooking would be 1st class as his XYL Marlene used to be a dinner lady
at my school some 30 years ago. Tom's in Lichfield which is also handy as Caroline and I usually get to visit
our folks in Cannock and Lichfield respectively.

A week prior to the contest I downloaded N1MM and Win-Test with a view to evaluating one
of them. For the past 5 or 6 years Writelog has served me very well but I fancied trying something
new for CQWW. Now I wouldn't usually recommend unfamiliar software for a serious contest
effort but this was never going to be anything more than a semi-casual entry given the single
element antenna and working a week of night shifts right up to the Friday morning.

160m and 80m seemed in great shape, really low noise levels, had my two best (albeit brief) runs on
Top Band and 80m and never worked as many North Americans on the low bands in a weekend before.
Delighted with the 80m QSO count as Tom's antenna is a full wave on 80 and naturally a pig to load up.

Not sure what went wrong on 40m - It's usually such a reliable band for me. 40 seemed impossibly hard.
High QRN, low MUF? Did anyone else struggle? North Americans always seemed stronger on 20 or
80. The rate always nose-dived each time I went to 40 so the QSO count was poor but country figures were
reasonable. The States just never sounded strong each time I visited 40m.

20m Plenty of NA and opened especially well each afternoon, virtually all S&P though.

15m Some choice DX to be had but exclusively S&P.

10m Pleasantly surprised. Took a break on Sunday morning and woke at lunchtime to find several mults
amongst plenty of QSB.

So Win-Test was given the outing, and despite the unfamiliar key sequences (Insert) for exchange
then (+) for TU and log, I enjoyed using the software. Clearly it owes a lot CT, especially the above
key assignments but these were easy enough to re-assign to other unused keys. This made for
less fatigue. The best feautre of the software was the 'Objectives' window. I looked through my logbook
and found a CQWW from 1995 - a similar point in the solar cycle, so I used my log of 11 years
ago and created an 'Objectives' file. This is very easy to do in 'Win-Test'. It certainly kept me
entertained during the slow hours. The program didn't crash but I have to say neither has Writelog in the past.

Overall, a fun weekend and I felt like I had plenty left in the tank at the end, for a change.
CQWW remains one of the best contests alongside WAEDC but that will probably be it now until next November.
Our 8 month old daughter has seen to that!

RIG: FT-1000MP MK-V
ANT: 250' Doublet up at 40'
S/W: Win-Test 3.6.0

73

Dez