[UK-CONTEST] CQ WW SSB 2007 - GM0F (long)

[Cooper, Stewart]

Sadly, this year's CQ WW SSB was a complete non-event, but as Dave
prompted for some stories here's mine. I had a few issues which really
put a damper on my enthusiasm (which doesn't take much to dampen these
days) and my score.

I entered the Assisted section. I don't know why, when you're given your
mults on a plate, the rate just falls through the floor. I think it's
essential to ignore the cluster until at least midnight on Saturday
night! Strangely, as others have said, it's not Single Op Assisted, it's
Single Op Distracted. This was borne out by my rapidly failing score on
Saturday morning. Using the wonderful WinTest objective facility I could
see that I was falling behind after 0400 without any let-up on my
enthusiasm up till then (compared to 2005).

My 15m signal was awful. I was given a couple of 'bad audio' reports
when I started running on 15m, although I was unaware of the cause. I
listened on my second radio, and sure enough, it was awful. I
disconnected everything that might have allowed RF in, but to no avail.
I tried running using the second radio (FT1000MP + Collins 30S1) and it
was as bad. Very strange when you get RF feedback in the same manner on
two separate radios! It looks like it's the antenna. I had to repair the
feeder last week, so perhaps there's more to the problem than meets the
eye. So 15m was out of the frame.

I couldn't copy stuff on 20m. This was a real pain. Conditions were good
and the band was busy. I now realise that I am not better than the
radio. I've always refused to buy additional SSB filters for my radios.
I now realise that I'm not better than the radio, and that filters are
an essential part of a decent transceiver. I nearly bought two new ones
last night!

160m set the phone off. Every time I transmitted on 160m I set the house
telephone off. It's done this in the recent past but I never really
dwelt on it. This was serious and I couldn't go on. As to why, I have no
idea. Was it doing it to the next door neighbour's phone too? Up until
July this year it was not a problem, and nothing on 160m (or the phone
system) has changed. In fact I actually removed the phone line from the
shack earlier this year. It must be RF getting in to the actual phone
line, which passes by the antenna field at about 20 feet high. Very
simply, it must be over-powering the phone. So, no 160m either.
10m was open and was jumping, but for me, only with lots of Europeans. I
called CQ and worked strings of DL's and OE's. I felt this wasn't as
productive as it might have appeared at first.

I have some horrible bug which I caught in Ghana a few weeks ago which I
can't shake off. Have now been put on a course of some extremely potent
anti-biotic. I'm run down. (Just adding this to the list of excuses!)

But it was the 20m and filtering problem which finally did it for me. I
find it incredibly difficult to walk away from a contest. It takes me to
a place I don't want to go (mentally). I am tired for a start, which I
am not good at handling these days, as mild paranoia seems to creep in
(I think - I'm not an expert). Then I just get so depressed once I have
had a sleep because I feel that I could rescue the situation, but then
another side says - no way, you're .5 mil points behind already.

So, last night I booked my flight to operate at CT9L in November!

Operating time  : 14h50

 BAND   QSO  CQ DXC DUP  POINTS   AVG 
--------------------------------------
  160     0   0   0   0       0  0.00 
   80   223  13  69   2     292  1.31 
   40   148  15  71   0     242  1.64 
   20   364  20  78   1     622  1.71 
   15    44  11  33   0      81  1.84 
   10   139   9  41   1     180  1.29 
--------------------------------------
TOTAL   918  68 292   4    1417  1.54 
======================================
        TOTAL SCORE : 510 120

 
Stewart Cooper
Maintenance Systems Engineer

ODL
Buchanan House  Summer Street  Aberdeen  UK  AB10 1SJ

Tel (Direct) +44 (0)1224 628039
Tel (S'board) +44 (0)1224 628000
Fax +44 (0)1224 643325
 
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