[UK-CONTEST] M0XXT/P

[Callum M0MCX]

First time out with shiny new callsign with Chris (G1VDP), Tim (M3SDE), Lee
(G0MTN) as well as myself as the main ops able assisted by Marti (M1DCV) and
our 12 year old scout helper, Aiden - who ran the spotter station for the
first time in his life – thanks Aiden. Colin (M3OFW) popped in a couple of
times and took great interest in the setup - welcome to Colin.

For antennas, we went to town on qtr waves as well as dipoles for 80m and
40m but we let ourselves down by the tribander which we couldn’t get to work
properly - showing fluctuating SWR, particularly on 20m where we could
really only effectively run lower power. We found out afterwards that only
one strand of copper was being used as the main feeder at the connection
point to the driven element. Clearly a serious blow and we should have made
many more Qs on 20m.

As a first time QRO /p station, we targeted ourselves at half a million
points but fell short, mostly because of a lack of a big session on 20m but
also due to lack of mults on 15 and 10 in my opinion. However, we aired the
new tent and generator as well as my new ACOM and it all worked perfectly
barring band filtering between stations which is being corrected by some
band filtering currently on the drawing board of my friend Barry (M0DGQ).
The main run station was my trust MP with Inrad roofing filter but due to a
blow-up of my Mk5, we reverted to a backup plan of a TS2000 which actually
performed pretty well as a spotter connected to a vertically polarised 40m
loop which worked “all band” on receive. All coax was 50m lengths of
Westflex.

Highlights was being called by ZL and VK on Sunday morning on 40m between
7:30am and 8:00am local time as well as hearing Tim asking for GW0AAA’s
serial number again and again on 10m. I was out dropping the 80m and 40m
verticals in the morning but was happy to hear a multi coming through. I
found out later that some QRN gave him too much grief and we never made it,
sorry chaps!

In terms of shifts, Tim and I worked the night - although I got the better
shift; midnight to 3:00am. Tim went graveyard through to 6:30am (he’s a
star!) and only woke me so that I could work the ZLs and VKs coming in. Is
that because I’m older? :)

I realise that the interesting thing about these team events is how you put
on a better show the next year etc. Of course, doing this with the open
section means that you gradually get bogged down each year with bigger and
better ideas until finally one becomes completely sensible and joins the
likes of the Bristol chaps and string up a long wire or doublet with 100
watts. I believe that we have a couple more years left of being completely
daft I think so perhaps there a chance of getting a higher score one year.

This is a new callsign / club with a new direction and a number of people
need to be thanked for riding this wave with me, particularly all those
mentioned above: Tim, Chris, Lee and Barry – and of course young Aiden and
all those other young scouts that we hope to introduce to contesting over
the years.

Numbers:

Band	QSO	Points	Cty
80	292	1169		29
40	516	1777		37
20	220	816		34
15	0	0		0
10	3	15		1

Total 381,477

Cheers all,

Callum McCormick
M0MCX
07976 631881
http://www.m0mcx.co.uk/