[UK-CONTEST] 1.8MHz - G3SJJ - A Senior Moment

[G3SJJ]

With dry wx conditions during the week my noise level was at a bearable 
s7, so I decided to give this one a go again. Worked a couple of ZLs in 
the last week and some "Good Signal" reports on the DX Cluster led me to 
think I could be competitive. Local ground conductivity and antenna 
height return a minimum SWR of 1.8 going up to about 2.7:1 at the CW 
band edges on the 160m dipole, so I put an L-match in the coax at the 
base of the mast, which is about 100m from the shack. All set then. N1MM 
working a treat and very smooth to use. Just has to be the best logging 
program around since CT first appeared on the scene over 20 years ago.

I guess bad earache didn't help and may have been an omen. I settled on 
1810.6. It was nice and quiet, but so was activity. I managed about 46 
Qs in the first 50 minutes, of which 17 were UK entrants, until some 
kind person alerted to me to the fact that the contest sub-band in fact 
ended at 1820. Very embarassing. I moved immediately up to around 1834 
but the motivation had gone and static crashes kept knocking out the 
incoming exchange. I switched off at 2250 with 102 Qs..

I will submit a checklog with the request that UK stations that called 
me should not be penalised for my abuse of the rules. Having said that, 
it does seem an anomaly that UK entrants in the RSGB Contest are not 
allowed to make contacts below 1820, yet UK and anyone else in the PACC 
are allowed there.

Chris G3SJJ