[UK-CONTEST] XE Contest

[Jim Martin - MM0BQI]

Missed BARTG last week due to office Christmas(!) night out and operations this weekend were severely curtailed by a RAYNET dinner and some exceptionally fine Scottish rugby on the telly.  I intended to try out SO2R from home in preparation for WPX next weekend.  Due to space limitations I have one 40/80m short dipole, nested dipoles for 10/15/20 and a trapped vertical for 10/15/20 at the bottom of the garden.  They are all within a few meters of each other. Sadly when I had time to operate I could not find any two of my useable bands open! However running the MkV and the IC7400 side by side was a bit of an eye opened.  My impression has always been that the 7400 is slightly better for RTTY than the MP and the few hours I put in re-enforced this. (The MP wins hands down on phone!) Even with the fully 'Inrad filtered' MP I was able to copy  better on the Icom when 20m was overcrowded with stations.  Next weekend I will make the Icom the Run radio and move the MP to 2nd radio position and see if the results repeat themselves. I wonder how much difference the roofing filter would make?
Used N1MM Logger again with the new 'Hover' feature which picks up the callsign without having to click the mouse or use the keyboard.  An amazing idea which is still in development and along with many other new features makes N1MM, contesting software to be reckoned with.  All in all good fun, just not enough time spent at the radio.
Also listened to some superb CW from the FOC guys, quality like that I can only dream about!
73
Jim,  MM0BQI

    QSOs    Pts  Cty   Sec
   3.5       2      6    2    0
     7      30     91   19    1
    14     101    304   25    1
    21       1      3    1    0
 Total     134    404   47    2
Score: 19,796

PS.  N1MM works great for the upcoming Data legs of the 80m CC.  It is very easy in N1MM to switch between RTTY and PSK to get those extra points!  If anyone needs set-up information please drop me a direct mail