[UK-CONTEST] GI0RTN - IRTS 80m

[Gerard Lynch]

Another New Year, another 80m IRTS 
contest.  After losing both the contest and the 
high QSO total last year by a whisker, I was 
determined not to make the same mistake this 
time.  To that end, I ‘gently persuaded’ GI3PDN 
to let me run his amplifier.  We couldn’t get it 
going on both CW and SSB without undue hassle, so 
I decided to run it on SSB and assumed 100 Watts would be plenty on CW.

This contest attracts people who never go near 
contests otherwise, and who often just want to 
bring in the New Year with their mates on the 
air, which is part of its charm.  Obviously, I 
take a slightly more competitive approach

Enormous fun as always, and as always I cannot 
thank Ray and Margaret enough for hospitality beyond the call of any duty.

Final score: 177 QSOs, including 2 logged dupes 
for 175 real contacts, 30 Counties, final claimed 
score of 13,440  A massive 70% increase in total 
QSOs this year, but the score increase is more modest, at just shy of 50%

SSB QSOs: IR 85 (+18) DX 71 (+51)
CW QSOs: IR 6 (-4) DX 13 (+6)

Irish CW QSOs actually down this year, of which more later


Half hour rates of 55/24/19/28/23/26

Missing mults: Kilkenny and Kildare.  With 27 
counties in the first hour I thought I might be 
on for the sweep but it wasn’t to be.  Kilkenny 
is the sort of place that one might well miss 
although it isn’t Leitrim or Longford 
either.  But what happened to Kildare, the Patio 
of Ireland, which must have the 7th or 8th 
largest population of the 32 counties these 
days?  Where was that evil fiend EI9JF, one of 
the biggest signals from EI on any HF 
band?  Having done IOTA with him, he was 
suffering from an excess of Mickey Finns the previous night, I’d bet.

Hangover factor: 9/10.  I had a good New Years 
Eve.  I spent the evening drinking Blackjacks in 
a friends house in Bangor with a small gathering 
of 20 or so.  Stiff Little Fingers and The 
Ramones were also played at some point in the 
evening.  Blackjacks are very tasty going down, 
but a *very bad idea indeed* the next day if 
you’ve had too many.  I was awakened at 12.30 pm, 
having slept through my alarm, by GI3PDN ringing 
to let me know he was back from his inlaws’ in 
Derry if I wanted to come round.  This is when I 
discovered the true meaning of the phrase 
“horrors of drink”.  I thought, “Oh keek, there’s 
a contest in 90 minutes, I’m still drunk from 
last night and when I stop being drunk, I’m going 
to feel *very* ill indeed, I need to get washed, 
dressed and find a taxi.”  I’m still recovering today.

With a start time two hours later than in 
previous years, the character of this contest was 
profoundly different than in the past.  Mostly, 
this was a good thing, but it wasn’t entirely so, as Ill discuss below.

THE GOOD: LATER STARTING TIME

QSO totals for the leading stations seem to be 
*massively* up on previous years.  Like 
60-70%.  This is a good thing as it avoids the 
doldrums that traditionally curse the latter 
stages of the contest.  170 QSOs in three hours 
is still not exactly a frenetic pace, but it’s 
steady.  We had propagation deep into Britain 
from the get go, and the first DL went in the log 
here at 1500Z, sunset at 1609Z.  A succession of 
Gs, DLs and near continentals kept the scoreboard 
ticking over nicely in the last hour.  This is 
good.  With 30 counties worked here, the extra Eu 
activity seemed to be bringing out more Irish 
activity as well.  I was sceptical that the time 
change would change the character of the contest 
profoundly, and although it *did* change it 
dramatically, it did so for the better.

Profound thanks go from me to all the stations in 
Britain and the Continent who gave us such sterling support.

THE BAD: CW

The downside was, for me, the lack of CW 
activity.  Having been bitten in previous years 
for going to CW too early, I left it to the last 
hour this time.  That may have been a mistake, 
but activity was really thin.  With GIs still 
pounding in at S9+, it didn’t feel like a skip 
zone had emerged by the end of the contest (one 
of my worries beforehand) so that couldn’t have 
been the problem.  Felt sorry for G4FKA and 
GW3NJW banging away forlornly at the bottom of 
the band for ages.  I thought I might get a nice 
Eu run going after sunset (usually easy with a GI 
call at any time), but I didn’t.  This despite 
hearing that V7 with a small Eu pileup at a good 
569, so there was obviously some decent 
propagation!  With so much activity from G and DL 
casuals, it now doesn’t seem to make sense to 
spend too long running CW in this contest, and 
there is a need for some urgent rebalancing.  CW 
QSOs should either count double (as in, e.g., 
ARRL 10m), or multipliers should count once on each mode.

I’ve seen Clive’s comment on the list (and BUO’s 
to me privately) that there should be a CW only 
section in this contest.  I am not opposed in 
principle but at present there isn’t enough Irish activity on CW to support it.

THE UGLY: DK3XY, “DER SHERIFF VON 80 METER”

The other downside with the later start time is 
that rather than being a private little contest 
for us GIs and EIs, that no-one east of Bristol 
notices until the last half-hour, the rest of 
Europe now notices a lot.  Actually, a lot of the 
DLs, especially the lower license class-holders, 
seemed to be having a lot of fun chasing all 
these odd Irish counties, but there’s always one 
muppet at any party, and on 80 metres, that 
muppet is usually called DK3XY.  About 
half-an-hour before the end of the contest, DK3XY 
pops up on 3697 where I am happily and 
productively CQing to an audience of DOs and M3s 
and tells me that this is a contest free segment 
according to IARU regulations.  I reply in my 
best German that the band plan is merely “eine 
Empfehlung” for frequencies where contests were 
“bevorzugt” rather than “gepflichtet”, and 
adherence to it is neither in the rules of the 
contest nor in my licence regulations, and 
requesting that he QSY.  We then had a childish 
and unproductive argument where he continued 
repeating his long screed without a break (in 
English) and I threatened to report him to the 
German PTT for deliberately QRMing me (in 
German).  I lost about six minutes by the time I 
found another spot that wasn’t possessed by 
jealous SSTVers, as well as losing a great run 
frequency and my temper (too shaking with rage to 
send CW properly!!!)  Brief googling indicates 
that DK3XY seems to suffer from "Acute M0TKO 
Syndrome" (i.e. the delusion that a particular 
frequency on 80 SSB belongs to him), and, you’ve 
guessed it, the frequency is outside the phone contest preferred segment.

If this contest stays at the later time slot then 
the IRTS may need to look at restricting its 
frequency range on SSB *but* the current IARU 
Region 1 recommended contest window on 80 is 
completely detached from the realities of 
operating on the band.  3775-3800 is the province 
of intercontinental QSOs; 3730-3740 is supposed 
to be for the SSTV and Fax fans.  If Region 1 
wants to recommend that SSB contests are 
restricted to 125 kHz of the band, then 3600-3725 
makes a lot more sense than the current Balkanised allocation.

GERRY IS CONTROVERSIAL

And all these things ought to be subject to a bit 
of common sense, allowing national contest 
organisers to come up with the bespoke solutions 
that fit the pattern of band usage in their 
country and neighbouring ones (I really doubt the 
issues of sharing 80 are the same in South Africa 
or Mongolia as they are in Western Europe).  The 
problem is that people like DK3XY are the amateur 
radio equivalent of the twitching curtain 
brigade.  Common sense would threaten their 
ability to act superiori by telling other naughty 
amateurs off for not heeding what is a 
recommendation for a preference.  The "contest 
preferred segment" recommendation gives them a 
high horse to bounce along on, blithely ignoring 
both the meanings of the words "preferred" and 
"recommendation" and the fact that intentional 
QRM is in breach of the terms of any amateur licence I've ever seen.

Personally, I am in favour of junking the Region 
1 recommendation, which only fuels the 
self-righteous posturing of twits, and is 
worthless in major international contests anyway, 
and instead encouraging national societies to put 
some sort of frequency limit on contests on a case by case basis.

MY MISTAKE: NOT MOVING PEOPLE

After last year’s contest, I told myself I would 
make out a list of people who I knew operated CW 
and ask them to move.  Of course, I didn’t 
actually do that looking through my log, I 
realise that I failed to make CW QSOs with EI5FK, 
EI2CA, EI8IU and GI0RQK (all of 5 miles away): 
480 easy points down the jacksie just for 
starters.  The only station I moved to CW was 
GI4NKB as I doubted he’d be about for long.

When the contest finished I was convinced I had 
walked it but am now not so sure.  If I lose 
this, it will be the lack of Irish CW QSOs that 
kill me by dragging my points/QSO down (last 
year, it was the Irish SSB QSOs that did for 
me!).  Anyway, another one for the to do list for next year...

...

Still and all, a great time was had by me and 
thanks again to the folks at the IRTS for organising it.

But if I haven't won this one after a score that 
obliterates all previous records, I’m gonna 
thcweam and thcweam and thcweam until I'm 
thick!  I just have this nasty feeling that all 
those 1 pointers and my lack of persistence on CW is going to cost me.

73

Gerry GI0RTN
http://www.gerrylynch.co.uk