[UK-CONTEST] IOTA 2009 - TM7O

[Ed -- GW3SQX]

Summary, TM7O, Isle of Oleron, EU-032, section: 12hr, CW unassisted, high 
power:

80m, QSO=65, IOTA=18
40m, QSO=219, IOTA=43
20m, QSO=243, IOTA=44
15m, QSO=324, IOTA=29
10m, QSO=62, IOTA=14

Total QSO=913, IOTA=148

Although conditions to the rest of the world seemed
poor, there was plenty of propagation within Europe.  The
interesting thing was that 15m was open for long periods
with lots of QSOs available, and many multipliers -- of
which more later.  Of course, in IOTA, it makes no difference
whether your mutiplier is in Europe or anywhere else, which
doesn't help as far as US participation is concerned, and is compounded by 
the fact that most of the US population is many hundreds of miles from an 
island.  I wonder if the absurd WAE decision on the 40m CW band plan will 
reflect badly on all European contests -- a good format (QTCs and so on) 
being gradually eroded by a number of bad policy decisions.

More than ever, it seemed, the pile-ups were
incredible -- and if you're the "only EU-032 in the
village", you become extremely popular.  Dealing with what
appears to be the continuous white noise of a mass of
CW is quite a challenge, and very tiring after a while.
Selecting stations who are a bit off-frequency helps,
and winding down the selectivity is a requirement, but in
the end, the rate drops simply because of the repetition
needed, particularly when everyone is approximately the
same volume -- a feature of 40m.  20m was also a zoo, and I
found that I could get better rates some of the time on 15m,
with just 5 or 6 stations calling at a time, instead of 50
or 60 on 20m.

The Isle of Oleron is a good place to be (I found out),
because it's an easy F-layer single hop to all sorts of
places, including G, DL, and much of eastern Europe.
Interestingly, there were many casual G callers, some at
painfully slow speeds, but welcome for their 15 points.  Not
much notable DX -- some JAs and a single VK (both on 40m),
and perhaps less North American participation than previously.

I took along an HF9V vertical with 12 radials, set up on sand
dunes overlooking the Atlantic.  I also tried out the Spiderbeam
collapsible fibreglass 60ft. vertical, which works
as advertised -- can be raised with one person, but
is much easier with two (given the usual wind
from the Atlantic, three or four would have been
easier still!)  When up, it was quite steady with two sets
of guys.  I wound 66 ft. of wire around the pole to give a
bit of loading, and fed it against radials as a quarter wave
vertical for 80m.  It was 100m from the shack, and worked
very well, although in the end, I didn't spend a huge amount
of time on the band.  It was around 10db better on receive
than the HF9V (around 25 ft. high), according to the S-meter, which seemed 
about right -- no time for transmit tests.

Thoughts on the IOTA contest itself:  there seemed to have
been more activity than ever, which will undoubtedly lead to
more entries.  I think that if you had to devise the contest
again from scratch, you would end up with something similar
to what we have now.  The IOTA contest supremo (G3XTT) has said he would let 
the contest settle for a few years before changing things -- is now the time 
to throw the doors open to suggestions?

73,

Ed, GW3SQX (TM7O)