[UK-CONTEST] CQWW 160 Contest - G3WPH

[Mike Chamberlain]

Conditions picked up somewhat for the contest compared with the very poor
state of top band during most of January and continue to improve post the
contest.  I operated between Sunset and Sunrise both days and N1MM tells me
the tally was: 

 

Band    QSOs       Pts       States/Provinces      Countries

 1.8       1031        5866     36                                   62


 Score : 574,868

Additionally there were 18 dupes  - I wonder if I've worked DXCC for G3WPS
yet?

 

For reception I used a pair of K9AY loops, one running NW/SE (good for North
America and Africa) the other running NE/SW ( good for most of Europe, far
east and south America).  Best DX was to the west using the NW/SE loop which
has a good null towards Europe - I worked California, Mexico, Caribbean, and
a total of 111 North American stations.  To the east, the QRM and key clicks
resulted in UA9 being the best DX  - I saw 9M, JA, VK all spotted from
Western Europe but they were almost certainly below my noise(QRM)  level.
It will be interesting to see if other  UK stations performed better to the
East - perhaps those with long Beverages. The rest of the station was a 40
metre near vertical TX antenna using a Helikite, FT2k transceiver and ACOM
1K amp. Unfortunately the air went absolutely still for the last 2 hours of
the contest and the Helikite dropped out of the sky.  The contest ended for
me just before 22:00 on Sunday.

 

I decided to use the cluster which automatically puts me in the Multi-Op
category - this was to keep an eye open for new Top Band DXCC entities -
this probably wasn't a good idea as the two new entities I worked were found
by S&P and I didn't work cluster spots until early Sunday evening when
things got very slow.  QSO rates for the first 4 hours were, 96, 92, 60, 52
and I had 504 contacts by the time I went QRT just after 08:00.  The second
spell between 16:00 Sat and 08:00 Sun produced an additional 414 QSOs.  The
final 131 QSOs coming between 16:00 and 22:00 Sunday - as I've already said,
very slow.

 

The breakdown of QSOs by major entities was:  DL/180,  W/95,  UA/89, OK/87,
SP/48,  UR/46,  G/43,  PA/37,  S5/38,  I/27,  HA/25,  OH/23,  EA/19,  9A/18,
VE/16,  YO/14,  HB9/12,  OM/12,  EI/8, Others/212.

 

I submitted the score last night and then entered the QSOs into LOTW, where
I got an 11% confirmation - unfortunately no new entities confirmed on Top
Band where I'm stuck at 96 on LOTW and waiting for the final 4  before an
LOTW submission of 960+ QSOs for a 6 band DXCC.   Beware all of you who
think ARRL already have an excessive backlog.  Even worse, I've got an
additional 900+ band slots confirmed with paper cards, which I'll submit if
I ever find time to sort them.

 

73

Mike

G3WPH