[UK-CONTEST] CQWW CW Report J88DR

[Dave Cree]

A belated summary of my CQWW CW SOAB Low Power operation from St. Vincent.

Despite having very poor LF antennas I decided to enter "all-bands" to 
give the J8 Mult away to as many as possible.

Fortunately I had a good run on 80m the first night, as the second 
evening was a disaster. Just before darkness fell we had a severe storm, 
and when later I tried to QSY to LF I discovered a very poor SWR on 80m, 
and infinite on 160m. I managed to work a few more on 80m, but had to 
spend most of the night on 40m.
When Sunday morning dawned I discovered one leg of the dipole had 
snapped. I had left 160m for the second night, knowing that with my low 
loaded dipole I would be a weak signal, so it transpired I worked very 
little!

On 20 and 15 I had some good runs to Europe and, naturally, to the 
Americas. Very little was worked from Asia, nothing from the Far East 
except a few JA's. Each morning at around 1200-1400z it was difficult to 
get a run going into Europe, as although I could hear lots of stations 
they were too busy working one another to bother with my puny signal.
10m was very poor  and apart from a few stations in Africa, all the QSOs 
were with Central and S.America. Unlike during the SSB event I did not 
get any runs into the USA. 3X was heard on 10m, but I could not be heard 
above the Europeans.

Station: IC7000, 100 watts
Antennas: 3 ele tribander at 30 feet (hand rotated).  Cushcraft R8 
Vertical, base at about 20 feet.  Inverted-V dipoles for 80m and 40m, 
apex at 30 feet, with loading coils on former for 160m.
Logging and keying, N1MM
Unassisted both through preference and lack of reliable broadband in my 
cottage!

Band          QSO       DXCC      CQ

160                 3                3            2
80               381              66           17
40               667              77           25
20             1088              88           24
15             1075              86           23
10                 20              16           10

Total points about 3,378,294 from 3,234 QSO's, operating time approx. 34 
hours.
Best hourly rate was 180 Q's whilst running the States on 20m.

Whilst being frustrated by 80 and 160 where I should have done much 
better, I was otherwise fairly satisfied with the result from such a 
simple set-up, all of which had been hand-carried to St. Vincent over 
the last few years.

Dave J88DR / G3TBK