[UK-CONTEST] 144mhz ukac

[Andy Swiffin]

Hi

Following the fine tradition of last month I'll kick off the ukac reports!

Well what a night!!  What incredible conditions!!   I really didn't realise things could get _that_ bad.   Even the kent beacon gave up and went to bed.

Such a shame as the day had started well with a bit of pre-QRL MS which bagged JN79 in 20 mins and my CQ was heard in JN61 at >2000kms, surely such a day would yield an epic contest and truly it did with a grand total of 20 qso's.   Conditions were so bad that I even struggled to work GM   (mm0gpz where _were_ you???  No IO85 mult for me).  Dick gm4ppt was only audible when I beamed south (and almost tone A) and not at all when I beamed at him,  until he turned his beam from south round to me when he popped up at S9 - very odd.    Still the absence of "local" stations means my average points per qso popped above 400.  And I did work IO86 again which is always rare dx for me :-)

After last month which was almost totally S&P I thought I'd try and be disciplined and stick at running for longer (even when no-one comes back for 10 mins) so I did and no-one came back after 20 minutes....   So I gave up and went back to S&P again.    Take heart Nubsey,  no-one spotted me either :-(   But on one tune around I did hear  g0hvq telling someone that gm8oeg was "a good signal"  down on 205 (which was nearly as good)  so I beetled back down and gave it some more (thanks Darrell :-).    How was .205 for you people in the busy noisy places (I hear such places do exist, but it's hard to believe),   Am I far enough away from the madd(en)ing crowd for y'all  to hear my still small voice in the wilderness or should I find a spot in the wastelands below .200 ??

Thanks to the stalwarts who always seem to appear in the log:  g4dez (well I know I can work Bryn when he's beaming SE!), M1MHZ (at one point the _only_ signal audible on 2M), g0hvq (usually always there), g0xdi and g4irc /portables (brave people - minus 4 yesterday morning and snow blowing in the wind yesterday evening here, but I suppose you don't have mountains down there, do you?), gw8asd (exotic dx, 2 countries away),  and g4rra (always vies for odx with g3zvw and g7rau - where were you gentlemen!!).

Will I be back next month???    Oh, I expect so, I've bought a new aerial now.   Will I win????    ROTFL.......   

73
Andy
gm8oeg


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