[UK-CONTEST] CQWW CW J88DR

[daveg3tbk at tiscali.co.uk]

And now the story from St. Vincent.

For me the event started disastrously - I was stranded in the wrong 
Country!

Last Wednesday I travelled to Antigua at short notice, after a total 
shutdown of communications to Montserrat. I planned to return on 
Friday, to arrive in J8 about 2300z. This was a far from desirable 
build up to a 48 hour contest! However, having checked in with tha 
local Airline (LIAT) - (Leave Island Any Time) I heard that the 
aircraft had a maintenance problem. After 30 mins delay, they announced 
they were getting a replacement a/c from the hangar. We boarded 45 mins 
late - to be told that the "new" aircraft had an instument failure, and 
an Engineer was coming to fix it.
 
Hence when you were all starting we were just taxying out to the 
runway in V2.

I finally got on almost 1.5 hours late, and did a few hours before 
catching up on a bit of sleep. After getting up early on Saturday, the 
rest of the weekend went more or less to plan, and I managed 37 hours 
operating.  

Ten meters was predictably bad, just a few South American stations, 
who were pounding in as usual. 15m yielded a large number of QSOs 
mostly with the USA and Canada, but was not good to Europe or Asia. On 
Saurday I was just trawling the band as it closed when I caught 4 
stations in ZL, which was a nice surprise!
20 and 40 were the best bands, and the new rotator on the Beam really 
helped with hunting out the mults. I was a little disapointed with 80m, 
but my antenna is too low, and I did miss some time on Friday night 
/Saturday morning. I managed a few multipliers on top band, which was 
all I expected.

Summary:

Band        QSO        Points           Countries         Zones

160             7             17                 7                    
3

80            296           692               59                   17

40            815          2034              81                   23 

20          1196          2925             105                  28

15            701          1484              58                   25

10              28             83              10                     
6

Total claimed score - 3,053,170 points from 3043 QSOs.

QSO Rates / Runs (Tnx to N1MM logger)

Best minute:      5 QSO / 300 per hour
Best 10 mins:    210 per hour
Best hour:         182 per hour

Best Runs: 458 QSOs on 40m at 139/hour
                327 QSOs on 15m at 176/hour
                344 QSOs on 20m at 165/hour
                  62 QSOs on 80m at 135/hour

Rig was IC7000, with 3-ele Beam, R8 Vertical, and dipole for 80m 
(Moonraker loading coils for 160m)

And now it's time for the Office although I wish  I was going to spend 
the day by the pool.

73 Dave J88DR/G3TBK



Games for all the family from Tiscali - http://www.tiscali.co.uk/play
__________________________________________________________