[UK-CONTEST] CQ WW CW - G5W

Don Beattie g3ozf at btinternet.com
Mon Nov 26 15:36:32 EST 2007


Rather an indifferent performance from some bands, which I think reflects in our score this year. Great activity, but really hard overnight on Saturday on LF. 40m seemed to be suffering from high absorption and we had some difficulty getting the runs going that night. Nice to see 10m spring into life on Sunday

A minor panic on Sunday morning when we lost one bank of antennas on the mult station - SWR went crazy and for a moment we thought we had had a visit from the local wild-life and that the antenna switching control cables had been eaten (which has happened here in the past). In the end it was simply a fractured cable in the relay box that changes over the two banks of antennas between stations here. Fixed after about 30 minutes, but 30 minutes of lost multing time ! Some great LF mults, but hard work to hear some of them with the wall of Europeans calling.

Everything else worked well - WinTest was bomb-proof as ever, and we ran five computers on the network, to allow for analysis etc. We did notice an odd effect on one computer (running Win98 !) in that it seemed to go slower and slower during the test, suggesting that WinTest was eating memory. Nothing similar on the other four (all running XP). Has anyone else noticed this ? We were running the latest 3.18 version.

We ran with a third (spotting) operating position this year, and it was good to be able to listen on all bands (even the active bands) within a few kHz of the G5W signal.

Thankfully the previously forecast winds did not materialise (at the beginning of the week it was predicted to be rough for the weekend) and the worst we got was a gentle breeze.

Thanks to Chris (G3SJJ), Dave (G4BUO), Justin (G4TSH) and Marios (G0WWW / 5B4WN) for making the journey over to Shropshire to join in the fun - a great team.

Station was:

Run:  FT1000MP MkV + linear (See below for antennas)
Mult: FT1000MP + linear (See below for antennas)
Spot: FT1000MP MkV + Cushcraft R5 (but works well as an rx antenna on other bands)

Antennas: 
Bank A: 40-10m Force 12 yagi at 80 ft; dipoles for 80/160
Bank B: 20-10m SteppIR at 60ft, Titanex V160HD for 40/80/160
Banks A and B can be changed between the two stations

K9AY loop on both stations

Win-Test v 3.18 networked


Claimed Score:

 BAND   QSO  CQ DXC DUP  POINTS   AVG 
--------------------------------------
  160   434  17  79   5     682  1.57 
   80  1211  28 108  16    2147  1.77 
   40   942  34 143  11    1640  1.74 
   20  1372  35 138  21    3113  2.27 
   15   527  29 128   7    1061  2.01 
   10   111  14  45   0     148  1.33 
--------------------------------------
TOTAL  4597 157 641  60    8791  1.91 
======================================

TOTAL SCORE : 7 015 218

Thanks to all for the QSOs.

73

Don, G3BJ @ G5W


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