[UK-CONTEST] CQWW - CW 2007.

[brian coyne]

Warning  -  Long Post.
 
A very enjoyable experience, conditions do not need to be great or at sunspot max to have a lot of fun.I have reached that certain age where a minimum of 5/6 hours sleep is needed, else I cannot perform. It seemed to me that 20 mtrs would fit the bill perfectly for a single band effort this year as the band closure aligned with normal sleeping patterns.At peak sunspots a 24 hr effort would be needed to be competitive.
 
I suspect that this band was a bit tougher to work from the uk cos from your mid morning when darkness falls in the east and their band closes you have nothing to work to the west, until usa appears at mid day, except europe and africa and there is precious little activity there. From here, 2000 miles east of uk and at lower latitude, it's a bit different. Whilst politically Cyprus is part of eu physically it still belongs to asia so we can work all of eu with no dead spots all daylight hours at 3 pts per hit.  We  also get the band opening to usa abt the same time, or maybe a little earlier than uk. I am low power and got the first call from kc1xx at 10.29z, perhaps the big guns out here beat that by a margin.There is a downside (as a low power stn), there is not a lot to work in quantity to the east, where you could get a run, except ja's. As we are exactly midway between ja and usa east coast that's a long way and in big contests on crowded bands, lp
 stn's get demolished whenever they try to run! Probably too.we get more hours of propagation, the band was open for me from (local times) 6 am until dark just after 5pm, then after an hour or so it opened again for 3/4 hours with paths to south america, carib, and some limited openings to usa. Africa was always there but I ran out of stuff to work after the first day, pretty poor turnout from that continent this year. During darkness I could hear a lot of stuff I couldn't raise so that was very slow for me but the high power guys probably managed quite a lot.
 
My strategy was to s&p for maximum mlt's but calling every stn I noted whilst trawling the band to build the qso count, it seems so inefficient to wait to hear the c/s and then move on without giving a call. It took abt 1 hour to complete each trawl and when starting over there were plenty of new players, east coast lined up defence force excepted. I had resolved not to spend too much time on any one pile up and put that qrg into memory to go back to. This really paid off, ok some had gone but most I got, either the hordes had been satisfied or propagation had come into my favour. I set a simple target of 400 q's per day as I wanted to max the mlts to obtain a competitive score and was pleased that the final total well exceeded that. I was surprised, and pleased, to get a few runs in to eu to boost the qso count without getting killed. I did fallout bigtime with dl1iao who twice tried to run me over, for someone who believes he is a top operator he does
 his reputation no good. For the first time in my life on air I told someone to 'pixx off' and then jammed him without anonymity. This nonsense continued for some 6/7 minutes of wasted time before he moved. No doubt if his grandpappy bequeathed him a nazi hilt knife he will now be keeping it sharp for me.
 
Propagation was patchy with different areas within eu as well as intercontinental fading in and out all of the duration. LP from the east from carib was strong and long lasting both days but west coast never appeared from that direction, and I looked hard for it, so I didn't get zone 3. There was little I heard lpwise from the west but I did hear and work a ja last night, that's an awful long way for just 1 pt!
 
Highlights - being called at 1934z, by ZD7X  for what turned out to be the penultimate contact, for a double mlt, and next breaking the pile for PZ5  with first call.
 
Lowlights - not getting zone 30. I heard a few vk's s&ping but not one running, then yesterday afternoon I was called by vk2bj who disappeared when I went back to him. So there it was I had 4 q's into zone  31 and only vk6 in oz!, amazing.
 
Zones not worked 1, 3, 6, 12, 30, 34.  Didn't hear zones 1,  12,  or 34. The others I called and couldn't reach. Frustrated cos I wkd 2  CE stns on Thursday evening on this band.
 
Wants list. - Packet cluster to be switched off during contests. It annoys me to think that all my hard work was for nothing when some guys cheat by using the cluster, going onto the 'general list'  and not entering the 'assisted' category
 
Kit - TS 570.  3 ele TH3 jnr at 15M. Logging SD - flawless for me,
 
Category  -  Low Power - 100 watts.
 
Call  - C4Z.
 
QSO - 1002, - 980 after dupes. I prefer to log dupes, always suspect if the other guy busts my call then the adjudicator may deduct the qso cos I am not in that other guys log.
 
Countries -  121.
 
Zones  -        34.
 
Total Points claimed  -  412,410.
 
Hope you all enjoyed WW as much as I did.
 
73 - Brian    5B4AIZ/C4Z.


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