[UK-CONTEST] GM7V (GM4YXI) CQWWSSB 2007 SOAB HP

[Kerr, Prof. K.M.]

Post-contest three days out of the office and town so I am late to
answer Dave's call to post!

After last year's antenna disasters I had a rather patchy attempt at
getting things fixed but largely managed to make all the permanent
antenna fixes that are possible over the summer. The main changes were
replacing the trashed 3el 20m beam with a 4el version and settling on a
40m dipole at 80ft as the main antenna on that band. My first attempt at
a HB 40m 2el yagi which died in last year's pre-contest tower collapse
was followed by two further attempts (a Moxon and a linear loaded
version) all of which had an average survival of about 4 days.
This summer's constant rain and a schedule which had me away a lot meant
I never got the grass under control in the place where the 80m vertical
lives. I thus has a bit of a pre-contest rush to get the radials and
feeders back down but made it with a day to spare. My beverages were
also at risk since the farmer usually is well finished with the field
before WWSSB, but not this year. Nice job for a windy, wet Friday.

The contest itself was a bit disappointing to be honest. For me,
conditions were NOT very good. I am always amused by how high activity
is interpreted as 'good conditions' during CQWW. 

160m - Spent a bit more time here than usual in a search for QSOs! No
transatlantic signals on the first night, two USA and three VE on the
second, no zone 8, ZY7C and several others didn't hear me.

80m - 8.8% QSOs were NA and these came in dribs and drabs, no decent
runs and they were rarely loud. Very little to the east either and I
missed some African multipliers

40m - several have reported on the odd conditions. For me they were just
bad. Probably the worst path to NA I can remember in this contest (only
9% of QSOs), even less to Asia with a big gap in zones east of the
z17/21 line until I work z30 long path. Very odd spells where the band
almost faded out. Maybe MUF falling below 7MHz here. Certainly killed by
the aurora. Sunday evening saw better signals from the NW but I didn't
seem to be able to make any headway. Regarding activity below 7.040, it
now seems that this territory is regarded as 'open' where before, at
least it seemed good hunting ground for non-Eu QSOs. Not any more. I am
not sure that I, or anyone else has quite figured out what to do with
our access above 7.1MHz?

20m - Thank God for 20m. At least I could make some QSOs though it was
several hours each morning before the audible stations became workable.
NA was present on day one but mostly zone 5, zone 4 stations were weak
and watery and Z3 absent. They were better on day 2 but zone 3 was weak
and had less than 10 QSOs here. Missed zone 6. Never had a hope of zone
1 or 31, zone 12 was never found, 19 and 27 were propagation-wise
perhaps a skip too far (north) and I missed three African zones. Only a
third of QSOs were NA.

15m - Despite this being my best points per Q band, it was also my worst
band, relatively speaking. Propagation here was really killed on day one
but perked up after 1300 on day 2. 15m was very poor F2-wise and the
Sporadic E was less strong than on 10m, thus it was hard to make
headway. I only had 145 Qs on 15m on day one and could only manage 3 z5
stations. Both mornings were dreadful, could not work beyond zone17 or
zone21. 

10m - Sporadic E was better than nothing and spiced up things a bit but
Africans were scanty and SA was hard to get at all. In retrospect I
spent rather too long here looking for stuff beyond zone14 / 15 and may
have been better employed elsewhere. Es seemed more widespread on
Sunday.

I ended up with more QSOs and more points than last year, but 35 or so
fewer multipliers. This is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the
weekend. Better antennas (ie not lashed-up repairs) but worse
propagation, at this QTH at least.

Someone posted a comment this year, echoing something I've been bleating
on about for years. If you are using a DVK but it's not your voice in
the message, you (may) cause great confusion.

Mult passing was much less successful this year. I was unlucky a lot of
times, but often the band we moved to just did not have propagation. QRM
and splatter were fairly grim and finding a frequency was often a
challenge, deliberate QRM was a bit less in evidence, I had no
complaints about being wide or spattering this year (I usually get some
- guess I wasn't loud enough!) but had one apparently sarcastic comment
about running QRP. For those of you who have never tried it, by Sunday
afternoon/evening of a full-on 48hr contest, the operator is not quite
at his sharpest or best (this one isn't anyway). My ability to detect
humour is thus impaired!

Congratulations to all those who made it on and posted scores. Great
job, especially to Andy 'PIQ on an astonishing result. I wondered if we
were in the same contest! ..........but it was fun, getting my ass
kicked again. I'll be back!

CU in CW

Keith GM4YXI (GM7V)

GM7V - Continents
By band - All modes
QSOs (with dupes)

! Band !   EU   !   NA   !   SA   !   AF   !   AS   !   OC   !
--------------------------------------------------------------
!  160 !  94.9% !   1.7% !        !   2.7% !   0.7% !        !
!   80 !  88.4% !   8.8% !   0.7% !   0.8% !   1.3% !   0.1% !
!   40 !  85.0% !   9.4% !   1.8% !   1.3% !   2.2% !   0.4% !
!   20 !  55.3% !  34.7% !   1.8% !   1.4% !   6.0% !   0.8% !
!   15 !  51.6% !  37.1% !   6.6% !   2.8% !   1.9% !        !
!   10 !  91.3% !        !   1.9% !   4.6% !   2.2% !        !


Operating time  : 42h00
 
BAND   QSO     DXC     CQ   POINTS       AVG
160     292     49     9     315         1.08    
80      751     76     16    922         1.23    
40      550     76     18    710         1.29    
20     1591    112     31    2995        1.88    
15      674     85     21    1325        1.97    
10      365     56     12    425         1.16 
TOT    4223    453    107    6692        1.58
======================================
       
TOTAL SCORE : 3 755 320





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