[UK-CONTEST] G3BJ - STEW PERRY TBDC

[Kerr, Prof. K.M.]

Good morning Don,
This is a first for me. A contest report when the event is still going on, though I have had enough.
Somewhat part time affair for this one and I agree that conditions were not all that great, especially towards NA.
I was QRV for about 7 hours in total. I operated around 1730-1800, 1920-2220 and 0530-0900 more or less. Managed 362 QSOs. I agree conditions to JA were reasonable last night although they seemed to be on their way down come JA sunset. I worked 39 JA stations. Even had the odd pileup of sorts from JA but it was marred by deliberate QRM, people trying to nick the frequency and key-clicks. There were times when the very close company of UY0ZG and ES5NC was just a complete pain in the neck. I asked ZG to QSY and was told to 'f$$$ off'. I got fed up at 2220 and went QRT. The 'Gentleman's band'?....not in a contest I'm afraid, especially when you want to operate in the JA band.
This morning was quite poor. I was not impressed with signals from NA. W8JI was outstanding when he called but otherwise everyone else was average to poor. 89 NA QSOs in the log. ODX was VK6VZ. Nil from South America but I have a bad habit of listening on the beverage and will miss weak sigs in other directions.
This is the longest I have operated in the SP by some way. I was disappointed by the level of activity.

I, too, had some issues with the Rx antennas. Just after CQWWCW my beverages 'stopped working properly'. Hardly any signal, just noise and shack computer hash. This usually indicates a poor feeder connection but I had struggled to find it. I made the effort again yesterday afternoon, otherwise I would probably have given the contest a miss. There seems to be an intermittent poor connection in the initial run of very old and a bit damaged heliax which I use for the beverages. I checked everything else I could (shack connections, long run of W103, termination, feedpoint transformer etc and all seemed to be OK. I suspected the old heliax and eventually shaking the feeder on the ground seemed to fix it! Not ideal or permanent but at least they work again!

Station ICOM and amp
Inv L 80ft vert and dipole feed at 70ft.
170m Beverages at 30, 70, 130, 240 (135m) and 300 degrees

Best wishes for 2009,

Keith GM4YXI
________________________________________
From: uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com [uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Don Beattie [g3ozf at btinternet.com]
Sent: 28 December 2008 08:46
To: Uk-Contest at Contesting.Com
Subject: [UK-CONTEST] G3BJ - STEW PERRY TBDC

A brief report on the SP:

Managed to have a half serious try at the SP last night, with mixed success. After an hour or so, I found that the K9AY was misbehaving and took a 30 minute rest period to fix it - corrosion on the feed line entry plug (now fixed) but it caused me initially to have noises on the receive antenna, as the power was not getting to the switching relays properly, and they were not making proper contact. I knew there was something wrong, but had not managed to track it down. There's nothing quite like a contest for showing up the weak spots in an installation.

Conditions didn't seem quite as good as I remember a few years back, but the run to Japan was excellent. Nice to have a JA pile-up for a while ! The US seemed a bit spotty - signals were not huge, but quite usable. No VKs and no ZLs here. Best DX was CE1. A total of 138 North America, and 28 Japan, with a few South Americans as well.

Decided to take an early break around midnight (with 16 hours of darkness, there's a decision to be made on when NOT to operate so as not to exceed the 14 hour limit) and I think I may have got it wrong, as I left a band which was yielding a few US stations, but came back (at 01.30) to a somewhat quieter band.

Apart from the K9AY problem, everything worked, but I suspect Justin will be well ahead of me from the M6T station. Good to hear GM4AFF and GM4YXI on - wonder how the contest felt from the North ?

Interesting that many people (except in the US) are still sending 599 in the contest, despite the rules being quite explicit that the exchange is just the locator.

WinTest says I have 3451 points from 489 good QSOs.

Used the usual stuff here - FT1000MP + linear and 90 ft Titanex and dipole, with K9AY on receive.

73

Don, G3BJ




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