[UK-CONTEST] G4IIY - CQWW CW

[Ian Fugler G4IIY]

We set ourselves a 2m target and achieved it with four minutes to spare.

We had only two operators (G3IZD and me).  Unfortunately, I was compelled to attend my wife's grandparents' diamond wedding anniversary party.  That meant being away from 10am until 5pm on Sunday and having to get some sleep overnight on Saturday so as to look and behave as a reasonable in-law.  As Ivan was preparing for an early morning departure to the States on Tuesday, he was understandably keen to catch up on his zzzs over the weekend.  It meant that we were off the air altogether for several periods.

We were joined throughout virtually the entire weekend by Colin G6LSO, who is in the process of reforming a local radio club.  His enthusiasm was great and will definitely be here again for SSB contests.  So, Contest Cumbria looks like having some new ops for future events.

One of the things that struck me this year was being called by so many Gs.  It was good to exchange reports, but I wonder how may realise they count for nil points.  I cannot believe that we were a mult for them.  That having said, thanks to M5X for pulling us out of the background for a mult on 20m.

160m was really good, although the country score is down on last year.  We need to install a rx aerial, as the noise level was higher than I had previously experienced.

I saw a comment that 40m seemed slower this year.  That was certainly our experience.  The country score is up on 2005, but the zone count and total QSOs are well down.  We could simply not sustain a decent run of three pointers at all this year, despite adding a lot more radials to the 40m vertical.

One of the strangest things was working VK9AA on 10m, when he was the only signal on the entire band.  It opened shortly afterwards for a brief run (mainly northern EU) with everything coming from a beam heading of 60 degrees.


Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones   Countries
------------------------------
160:    300      9          53
80:      411     19         78
40:      669     23        104
20:      489     29         93
15:      255     24         78
10:      57       10         32
------------------------------
Total: 2181   114      438  

Total Score = 2,001,552


Ian G4IIY