[UK-CONTEST] Contests or QSLs?

[Clive Whelan]

Didn't anyone get on in the weekend's contests? I'd much rather read 
about that.

I made the obligatory couple of hundred QSOs in the Croatian contest, 
well 230 to be exact in 38 countries- just a couple of hours poodling 
around on 14Mhz only as usual for this point in the sunspot cycle ( 23, 
24?). The only UK station I heard was Lee/G0MTN who was (strangely) 
deathly weak.

Yesterday there was remarkable propagation to AC7P in Idaho around 
16:15z. I had enormous difficulty copying his exchange as his LP signal 
was stronger than his SP signal off the back of my little C3SS. I assume 
that he was beaming LP, but not sure of course. At first I thought it 
was just QRM until I wised up and realised that the QRM immediately 
ceased when he stopped transmitting! I didn't notice the effect on any 
other  zone3/4 signals, so perhaps they were all beaming SP as was I?

Today I left the beam due West, and was called by VU in the East ( as 
well as Europe), and from VO1 to LU in the West on that heading. A 
remarkable amount of activity in this one as per the past few years, and 
the usual gignormous signals from 9A.

I made just 34 QSOs in the OKOM RTTY contest yesterday with quite a lot 
of West coast stuff in there. Just worked zones 3,4,5,9 &14 beaming due 
West. RTTY is not really my bag, but is marginally more interesting than 
QSL cards which I find mind numbingly boring!- ymmv.What on earth is the 
Naval contest that rears its head every few months and always clashes 
with another event!


73



Clive