[UK-CONTEST] CQWWCW 2007 GM7V

[Kerr, Prof. K.M.]

Dear All
Another late report. Congratulations to all those posting scores. Some
really good efforts out there. 
After the SSB event I was more or less ready to go on CW bar trying to
get Wintest to key the PTT line for the station. Using the VOX on the
rig has never been very satisfactory and I think I was clipping the
first character. I eventually figured how to get the PTT line working,
thanks to the on-line CT manual, rather than the Wintest version!!
Then came 8th November and a northerly gale up here which completely
destroyed my 80m vertical. I suspect that the repaired version I put up
in mid-October was unstable. I have to congratulate Moonraker on
producing some new 2in sleeve clamps and a fibreglass mast in short
order. Between snatched half hours at sunrise before going to work and a
wet and windy Sunday before the contest I got the thing remade and back
up in the air but I cannot say it was a pleasant job.
I didn't go into the contest very well rested, having got home from a
business trip at 2200z on Friday. I immediately realized how badly out
of practice with contest CW I was and, I am sure much worse than Andy,
struggled throughout the weekend to get calls first time. Average
sending speed seemed to be faster than I remember and I had real
problems with some calls. This was compounded by my gradual slide into a
zombie-like sleep deprived state. I had rough spells at various times on
Saturday morning, rallied a bit, slept about 90 mins early Sunday am but
fell asleep several times on Sunday at the keyboard. I even had auditory
and visual hallucinations. (I'm sure those mushrooms are not good
contest food.................)

10m. Like most, this was barely open for me. I managed 4 qsos on
Saturday and a few more on Sunday. Lots of stations on Sunday couldn't
hear me. QSB was viscious and deep.

15m. I managed 60 Eu QSOs on Saturday and got zone 5 & 8 but little to
the east. It seemed a little better on Sunday but not much. Zone 17 was
a scraped QSO and I struggled with z21.  With only 3 NA qsos on Saturday
I tried not to miss any opening on Sunday and left 20m at 1445 to find a
very occasional station from the W4 call area on 15m. I S&P as many as I
could find and managed a short run of about 50 US stations by beaming
over South America. All these signals (including W3LPL and KC1XX) were
fading in (barely) and out (quickly), and the signal strength (barely
above noise floor) reminded me of 2m EME. VP8NO and ZD7X were welcome
callers during this episode and kindly moved to 20m.

20m. Saved my bacon again, like a month before, though I thought
conditions were even poorer than October. I managed I think one JA each
day and if anything Saturday was better than Sunday with a handful of z3
stations but hardly any on the Sunday.  48% qsos were with NA.

40m. I think a few people have remarked about how 'odd' the band was. I
guess poor SF and a bit of aurora is a bad combination. It seemed to me
that the band closed for most of the night for longer haul stuff. I
worked hardly any NA stations the first night, very few more Sat night /
Sun am but managed a few more early on Sunday evening. There is a narrow
window for me to get the USA on 40m when the band is like this and it
seems to overlap with 20m being open in the same direction. 85% EU, 8%
NA qsos 

80m. Always possible to run stations on 80m, thankfully.  NA was fairly
steady but not spectacular. Managed one z3 station. Some nice DX from
the east, VK9AA included. 18% NA, several z11 & 12

160m.  Pretty good conditions to NA, especially the first night and I
was surprised to make over 25% of my QSOs from NA. 

Overall, a good fun contest though I was a bit disappointed by my score,
especially my miserable multiplier count. Not enough time spent
searching.  It is always great when stations agree to QSY. This provided
a few good mults but mostly the moves failed, especially when 40m was
involved. I also thought there were a lot of 'No's this year....must be
the way I ask! Over-riding memory of the event was feeling tired all the
time.

Regarding the short / vanity call issue, I think I would probably
change. My mouthful is often corrupted on SSB (and by me on CW, but
that's another story) and I guess I would get used to a new call quite
quickly. And for all sorts of reasons (!) let's hope it can be a GM7+2
and not an S3 or S4.......................  

CU in the next one 
Keith GM4YXI (GM7V)

Time on: 41hrs
 
 BAND   	 QSO  	DXC  	CQ  
  160  	 578     	56  	16      
   80  	1010     	81  	22    
   40  	 616     	66  	17     
   20  	1001    	80  	30    
   15   	 261     	65  	18    
   10    	  23     	17   	7       

TOTAL  	3489   	365 	110    
TOTAL SCORE : 2 772 575