[UK-CONTEST] MW1LCR/P SSB FD 2008

[Adrian Rees]

Hi all
Well this year's SSB FD from wet North Wales was, well wet and windy, from
Friday to Sunday, with maybe an hour or two of metrological respite just
before the start of the contest.

I started setting up at 2pm local time, Friday afternoon. The WX was
atrocious, but the weeks before I had spent practiceing and fine tuning the
mast erection had paid off. By 5:30pm I had the two 15m masts in the air,
and the homebrew aerial system, comprising large doublet and motorised
homebrew auto atu,was launched into the sky.By this time I was soaked
through, and decided to call it a day, with the intention of turning up
early to erect the tent, and get the station together. 

Lucky for me, a visit to the pub in the evening, resulted in a number of
pints, and the offer of an old horse box to operate in. I accepted the offer
of the horse box, as the weather was forecast to be pretty bad again.

So Saturday morning I arrived at my neighbours farm in my battered, trusty
Landrover to colect the horse box. Little did I think I would have to muck
it out first ! But, beggers can't be choosers, so I cleared it out, an towed
it to the site.

I set up the station, and things seemed to be all OK for the off a few hours
later. My strategy was simple, work as many /P Stations as possible, and
chase one or two mults along the way. The aim was to better my previous
score. I also figured that with the WX being so bad, there wouldn't be too
many G /P stations about, and that things would quieten down between 1am and
4am. This would be an opportunity fo me to catch a few hours sleep.....in a
smelly horse box. 

As it happened, I did get a break from contesting in the early
hours...broken feeder and a generator fault caused mayhem at the MW1LCR
Field Day site. Having to fix these faults in pouring rain and a decent wind
was, erm chracter building, shall we say...

No sleep and back on the air around 5:15 am and off I went again.

I finished the contest, and acheved what I wanted to achieve, a better
claimed score than last time out, and I reckon the logging is more accurate
as well.Certainly the band / freq planning worked a treat.  The station came
down as quickly as it went up, and I was in the bath by 6pm last night.  

I'll be trying to improve the score and strategy next year. Very pleased
with my one man SSB FD entry...

By the way, were the 3 A's out ? Didn't hear them at all....   


Claimed  Score : 249,480, Restricted Section

         Band    QSOs    Pts  Mult
         3.5     303    1151   25
           7     261    1015   22
          14     178     695   27
          21      22      95    8
          28       4      14    2
       Total     768    2970   84

73

Adrian MW1LCR