[UK-CONTEST] M6T CQWW CW Report

[ANDY COOK]

                     CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: M6T
Operator(s): G4PIQ
Station: G0KPW

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: JO02RF
Operating Time (hrs): 46
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  277    12       49
   80: 1338    26       75
   40:  817    27       85
   20: 1556    34       97
   15:  393    28       82
   10:   85    10       40
------------------------------
Total: 4466   137      428  Total Score = 4,719,445



  I'd hoped for a repeat of the SSB leg this weekend, but unfortunately it wasn't to be. This was down to a mixture of conditions, and poor strategy / performance from me. 
   
  When conditions are disturbed there's usually a fuzzy line of somewhat through Europe, sorth of which things are OK, but maybe not great, and north of which things are awful. In the SSB leg I was the right side of the line with folks like GM7V and ES5TV the wrong side. This time G was firmly the wrong side of the line. 15m conditions were awful with very little ability to run there and similarly at night the MUF from here dropped too low to make 40m runnable to the US after around 0000/0100. Looking further south in Europe you'll see big scores on those bands. 10m was of course nearly a write-off for everyone save for a few hours of sporadic-E on Sunday morning which included the odd Es extended F2 path to southern Africa (e.g. ZS4TX peaking with the Es cloud at about 110 degrees). On Saturday I was really wondering how much time to spend looking there if the band stayed as flat as it seemed that day!
   
  On the other hand 80/160 conditions on night #1 were excellent. Once again I tried to start the contest on 40m, but there was little rate so I scurried off to 80m for much the night first night. Later on I had a good run of zone 3 stations on 80 and then near dawn a decent run of US stations on 160 including a zone 3 which was good. Saturday morning, 15 seemed poor so I ran on 20 and grabbed mults on 15. I tried to run on 15 from time to time, but it brought low-ish rate and mostly 1 pointers so I just kept bashing away on 20. Once the US opening arrived there were basically 3.5 hours of good rate with the best hour of the contest a 173 and the best rolling 60 mins something like 176. I complely ignored the second radio during most of this opening, just trying to get as many 3 pointers into the log as I could - my brain just doesn't have enough CPU cycles to do CW at this rate and deal with a second radio! 
   
  20 closed really early at about 1740 and I then left to go to 40 and then spent the evenng dotting about through 40/80/160. 40 closed for me to the US slightly later on day 2 at about 0100 and 80 and 160 were fine but not in the spectacular form of night #1. 
   
  The result of this approach was that at the end of day #1 I had ony two figure QSO totals on 15m, and only a low number of Qs on 40m.
   
  I'd been tired for much of the contest (too much going on at home with house moves etc.), but it was about this time that I got really tired. Lesson - don't go shopping for contest food when hungry - I'm normally pretty controlled on what I buy to eat during the contest (low fat, only eat a little at a time etc.) - but this time I'd bought some very tasty cookies  - I've now renamed them big sleeping tablets! Once I'd recovered from this I did briefly consider trying to do a straight 48 hours at that point, but soon got tired again and figured that 90 mins sleep would be a better plan. I was off between 0340-0540. Looking at how bad my instant CW recognition was and how hard I was finding the second radio come the end on the contest, that was a good call! 
   
  Sunday morning I stayed a little longer on 40m to try and eek out a few more mults, but with limited success. Once going to the high bands I looked hard at 15m, but it never ran well and didn't deliver a whole heap of mults, and I kept being forced back to 20m. I caught the 10m sporadic-E opening and picked up another 35 or so mults there which was good news. I managed about 1 hour of successful running to the US on 15m, but that was it - otherwise it was 20, 20, 20, 20. 
   
  20 ran on about an hour longer on Sunday although rates were not so high. I then went to 40m and 80m to try and drag out some of my many missing far east mults, but could only flush out so many of them and I ended up missing some crazy stuff like both VK zones on 80.
   
  Come the end of the contest I was getting pretty tired, busting lots of calls, struggling to be effective with SO2R etc. 
   
  I ended up being around 70 mults short of where I should have been which is awful - excuses are many and various - but I just wasn't able to / didn't use the second radio hard enough on CW and should have been brave enough to spend more time stopping running and sweeping the band for mults. This was my first CQWW CW since 1996 not operating as a multi-multi and, with my CW skills, I needed a different approach to that which I used in the SSB event. Once again I haven't done enough CW over the past couple of years and was rusty as hell - I'll have to work on that. With conditions, I'd never have got close to the scores of the folks in Southern Europe, but I'd like to have come in with a better mult total, but you live and learn. 
   
  Sincere thanks to Bob, G4BAH for use of the station again, and to Darren, G0WCW for taking Friday off from work to help me put the antennas back together and get them up in the air. 
   
  73,
   
  Andy, G4PIQ
   
  Rig : 2 x FT1000MP + Alpha 87A + Ten Tec Titan

Ants 
160 - Inv-V Dipole @ 28m
80 - 4 square + Dipole @ 23m
40 - 402CD @ 30m
20 - 204CD @ 30m + TH5 @ 32m
15 - Extended 155BA @ 30m + TH5 @ 32m
10 - 105CA @ 33m + TH5 @ 32m