[UK-CONTEST] CQ WPX RTTY- G0HVQ

[Darrell G0HVQ]

My first real foray into an RTTY contest, in fact my first real go at an HF 
contest - I do the odd one (such as the RSGB 21/28) but I'm usually up on 
VHF. I setup on RTTY again for the ARRL Roundup in Jan (before this, the 
last time was with a Commodore 64 then a PC running DOS, so you can guess 
how long ago that was) and really enjoyed it, so decided to give this one a 
go as single-op.

I've only recently got going again on HF with a Hustler 4BTV, ground mounted 
with radials about 150ft from the house in open farmland. It tunes up on 80m 
but works like the proverbial dummy load, so I attached a wire to the top 
and run that back to just outside the shack, tuned against ground (about 
70ft of wire laid out on the grass) with an ATU outside. With the weather 
being so good, it was hard to justify spending so long in the shack, so I 
typically did an hour on / hour off, with more time on before dawn and after 
dark. I even got my 4 year old daughter helping with the logging for a 
couple of QSOs, which is a first - should I really enter as multi op ;-)

Scores as follows

Band             QSOs      Pts          Pfx
--------------------------------------
3.5MHz          77          314         50
7MHz             100        442         50
14MHz           228        528        143
21MHz           37           88         18
28MHz            9            20          4
--------------------------------------
Total                451        1392      265

Score  368,880 points from 451 QSOs.


28MHz - yes, you're eyes don't deceive you, 10m was open for an hour or so 
on Sunday afternoon. Propagation seemed to be some Sporadic E to the south, 
as most stations were from Spain, although there was also DL/S5/I heard, but 
the highlight was NP3U in Puerto Rico, whom I worked on all bands in the 
contest - must find out what sort of station he has. But who'd have thought 
it - working the Caribbean on 10m at the bottom of the cycle, who needs 
sunspots ;-)

21MHz - some decent propagation for the bottom of the cycle, worked a few 
North Americans on Sat but not Sun, when the propagations seemed to move 
further south. The vertical's a bit of a compromise on this band and doesn't 
seem to perform all that well, heard some DX but couldn't crack most of it, 
best in the log were PY5/OK5MM, ZS6DXB and HI3T (and of course NP3U).

14MHz - the workhorse band where I made most QSOs. I thought propagation on 
Sun was better than Sat - managed to catch a short opening to JA Sun morning 
(JA5JWQ worked but several more heard) and some juicy DX from central/south 
america popped up after dark (TG, YV, etc.) but they were working mostly US 
stations and I couldn't crack the pile-ups.

7MHz - not much to say really, band as you'd expect, though not much DX. 
Nice strong signals from the US just before the contest finished on Sun.

3.5MHz - aerial was a bit of a compromise but plenty of QSOs, only my second 
time on this band in 25 years as a ham (first was a few weeks ago in AFS) so 
can't really comment on propagation, though it was nice to work outside 
Europe (yep, NP3U again, plus some US).

Equipment used:

Icom IC7400 at approx 70W
Hustler 4BTV (7-28)
100ft wire (3.5)
N1MM logger with MMTTY

Overall, pretty pleased, things can only get better when we get some more 
sunspots, plus I really must find time to get that tower planning 
application in.

73
Darrell G0HVQ