[UK-CONTEST] CC April CW Contest operation prior to the start

[Dave Sergeant]

On 11 Apr 2009 at 8:42, Chris Partington wrote:

> I did not enjoy the April CW leg of this contest and gave up at 1930,
> unable to find a clear frequency to start a run and S & P was proving
> unsuccessful also.

I am slightly puzzled by your posting, and these club challenge events 
can be a bit daunting for those who do not do contests regularly. I 
know I get similar comments from some of our club members.

But perhaps I can comment as one of the little sprat stations who comes 
on and enjoys these contests. No big station, just 5W from my K2 into a 
very low 65ft longwire - most of you would laugh at it... I was tuning 
around for 10-15 minutes before the start and although there were quite 
a few stations having pre-contest QSOs and a minority just sending 
'test' I found there was plenty of space left for me if I was so minded 
to grab a quick report. I don't normally do so as I know how my rig 
performs anyway, but do occasionally say hello to a friend or two.

The start of these events is always pretty hectic and I tend to start 
at the top and work down, as the big guns (ie 100W...) tend to crowd 
down in the bottom 10kHz or so and generate pileups. I tend to operate 
exclusively S and P as my CQs are rarely that productive on QRP. I 
started out at what for me is a fairly typical 60 QSOs/hour which 
slowed somewhat towards the end, with 76 QSOs in the log by 2130. I had 
no problem calling and working people, although of course occasionally 
I had to send a repeat. I did put out a few calls, there certainly was 
room higher up the band and towards the end even down the bottom.

So at least for me being a pip squeak signal is no problem and I had 
none of the problems you are talking about.

(but as for the SSB legs,. that is something different...)

73 Dave G3YMC

http://www.davesergeant.com