[UK-CONTEST] 21/28 Contest

[Darrell G0HVQ]

Not a big station entry by any means, but here's a summary from me.

To sum it up in one word - frustrating. Conditions not too bad considering 
we're at the bottom of the cycle, plenty of signals on 21 e.g. heard VK and 
YB (amongst others) but had trouble raising them. Loads of new multipliers 
from Europe with big signals calling the DX stations, but didn't call me. 
The Russians and Ukrainians were the saving grace as usual, plenty of 
activity. Only real surprise was catching the 9K2 (presumably before he was 
announced on the cluster). 10m opened up a couple of times, but I couldn't 
couldn't complete any QSOs before the QSB took signals out.

Hung around until about 4pm local when the 21MHz band appeared to close, 
heard other Gs working the US but they were fairly weak with me. Surpringly, 
17m was in great form, pity it didn't move up a few MHz .

33 QSOs, 1 dupe, all on 21MHz, pretty even mix between SSB and CW.

On the face of it, don't appear to have done as well as last year, but that 
may be because there was more Es on 10m last year, plus thunderstorms caused 
a number of people to close down.

Equipment this side was an Icom IC7400, 100W, to a ground-mounted Hustler 
4BTV vertical with 8 x 30ft radials.

Let's hope for a few sunspots by this time next year :-)

73
Darrell G0HVQ


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <g4fka at aol.com>
To: <uk-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 12:44 PM
Subject: [UK-CONTEST] 21/28 Contest


> Haven't seen any reports from the serious entrants so here is a casual 
> op's
> view to kick things off. Only decided to have a listen around 0845 so came 
> on
> then CW only. Worked stations until 1418. Called for a further couple of
> hours  after that but no QSOs. 21 was still open but everyone was calling 
> the J6,
> D2  and 5L2. Wish a few of them had worked the contest as well!
>
> 49 raw Qs,  but one dupe and one G so 47 net, comprising 44 on 21 and 3 on
> 28. Kept going  back to 28 every few minutes but nothing heard after 1043.
> Spread on 21 was UA9  to the east, W1/3 to the west and VP8 to the south.
>
> Usual simple antenna,  this time a sloping half wave dipole cut for 24 MHz 
> so
> in between the  two bands. Top end at around 10m and most of the time 
> sloping
> just west of  south. Rig IC756 ProIII and MFJ993B auto-tuner.
>
> Would be interested in  reports from the bigger stations to see what 
> delights
> the rest of us  missed!
>
>
> Geoff G4FKA
>
>
>
>
>
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