[UK-CONTEST] RSGB 1.8MHz G3SJJ

[G3SJJ]

185 Qs - 52 Districts - 25 Countries - 940 points.

Q/H rate 92 - 55 - 36 - 4. After 4 Qs in 20 minutes during the last 
hour, which actually exceeds BERU rates, I decided to kick the last 40 
minutes into touch!

FT1kMP - Acom 1000 amp, dipole, LDF4-50 coax loop, mHam Keyer, N1MM.

With the rain not approaching until after the contest my Super Grid 
noise level was relatively low, about s7. Not sure why but the co-ax 
loop rx antenna worked better later rather than earlier in the contest. 
The only thing I can think is that it is more suitable for lower angle 
since it was definitely better for the Sates signals but not so good for 
close in stuff. The main excuse here though is lack of antenna height 
which at 57ft is not really competitive. Using two spar holm derrick 
masts I have been able to get the ends of the dipole up to about 45ft so 
the average height is probably more efficient and I suspect that helps 
intra-UK, but I reckon another 20-30ft on the height of the main 
radiating area would be better for Eu and longer haul stuff.

Quite a lot of static crashes, and generally much lower Eu activity than 
in the past, also a lack of GD, GU and GI stations. Nice to be called by 
TF, plus W1,3,4 and 8.

Some interesting observations after the recent ESM debate. I set N1MM up 
for ESM but after a few QSOs realised that I was in fact sending more 
info from the Keyer paddles, so I disabled ESM and continued for the 
rest of first hour sending all info on the paddles and using left hand 
index finger to manipulate the keyboard. Only when the rate dropped in 
the 2nd hour did I fell comforatble enough to start using INS/Enter/F3 
combo. At 1 QSO per minute it certainly wasn't a fast enough rate to 
require a return to ESM.

I've been trying to understand this a bit more and have come to the 
conclusion that since taking early retirement some 3 years ago I have 
been able to spend more time having high speed CW chats using the keyer 
and paddles, to this extent my right hand has become more active than my 
left hand (see later comment!) I have alos find that when using the 
keyboard generally, such as this email, my typing accuracy has declined 
considerably further suggesting that teh raection time of the fingersv 
on my right hand are slighlty better tyhan left so a typical runfd of 
words comes out something like thsio!!!

Anyway my thanks to the gentleman (our friend near Cheltenham again?) 
who kept telling me that I was a wanker and an arsehole. I am sure many 
people would agree but his time might have been spent more effectively 
having a few proper QSOs!

I still can't get my head around this speeding up business. I would need 
to have saved about 400mS per QSO in the 1st hour to add 1 additional 
QSO to that hour's total, but then with the rate going down from 92/h to 
55 per h, it was probably better to have added that QSO to the second 
hour and made it more meaningful. I reckon if the Q rate was going to be 
100 +/h for all 4 hours then certainly some speeding up could well have 
added my my 400+ Qs. Obvously for anything less tahn 100 per hour, and 
anything ceratinly approaching 30-50 an hour slowing down is more likely 
to produce more QSOs since my transmission would be on the air longer 
and therefore more likely to be heard.  But then I was always I bit 
thick and lacking intelligence!!

Chris G3SJJ


Chris G3SJJ