[UK-CONTEST] G3SJJ AFS CW

[G3SJJ]

Needed to work hard to reach a reasonable score. First hour was probably 
my best ever at 116 Qs, followed by 71, 56 and 32 for a total of 275 
with no dupes. In agreement with comments regarding filters and speed. 
During that first hour many times it was difficult to get any callsign 
because everyone was so accurately netted, presumably using very narrow 
filtering. Regarding speed and also activity level 3510 to about 3530 
seemed busy, but speed and activity appeared to drop off the higher I 
listened. A trend that I hadn't noticed before was that the most 
difficult sending to read came from early G3s and slower sending seemed 
to involve a zero. That's not a criticism, but I guess a slow zero just 
sounds slower!

I maintained 3525 as a Run freq for the first 2 hours, popping off a few 
on the 2nd VFO after the first hour. At about 1600 I suffered downright 
deliberate jamming simultaneously by 2 separate stations. One calling 
using ZL1AB and the other sending alternated dots and dashes so I went 
S&P and returned to '25 as when they had stopped or it had been vacated 
by genuine stations. I ran on 25 for most of the last hour but I think I 
worked more by S&P on 2nd VFO. I was asked several times if Freq QRL 
when I was listening to a weak station and didn't respond quickly 
enough. That probably lost me 2 QSOs!  QRL?....AS....QRL?.... AS, QRL? 
.... Oh bugger lost him. Thanks guys.

Very taken with N1MM as a logging program and have most definitely 
kicked Writelog into touch. But, I do apologise to those got gibberish 
from me! I am really trying to get the hang of ESM (Enter Sends 
Message), so type call in, hit Enter, type exchange in press Enter. Dead 
easy until you mistype, or even worse send the report on your paddles 
which throws the message out of sync. I'll get there soon!

Antenna work seemed to pay off. Completely removed the additional 60ft 
extensions which makes a 160m dipole and put a 140ft reflector under the 
main dipole. I don't really think this added much tx gain, but I do 
wonder if it all helped to lower the ambient noise level, since the 
offending power lines are off the end. Certainly noise on the beam was 
low at about s1 to s2, whilst on the 66ft vertical it was s5 to s6. I 
used the vertical in the last hour to pick up quite a few more easterly 
EU stations.

I have been encouraging M0AGA in his first ever contest. His 142 is very 
creditable given the lack of antenna facilities and no amp. Good on yer, 
mate.

Hard work but good fun. Chris G3SJJ