[UK-CONTEST] ARRL CW J88DR

[Dez Watson]

On behalf of Dave:


ARRL CW - J88DR / G3TBK

I made a fairly serious entry into the ARRL CW contest, managing 33 
hours. I would have liked to do more, but I had a very busy week last 
week with several late nights.

Rig IC-7000, Antennas A3S at 35 ft., R8 Vertical and 80m dipole 
end-loaded for 160m .

My efforts were adversely affected by a problem with the vertical, which 
went high-SWR on 40m (and 30m also affected).
This is my excuse for a poor score on that band!

On the plus side top-band was much better than I expected. I managed to 
get the antenna a few feet higher last week and that was obviously 
beneficial. Over the last week we have had very strong winds, up to 
severe storm force. During Sat night - Sunday morning a halyard snapped 
- I was QRT fot 15 minutes whilst I did a bodge repair at 3 a.m. local 
time. all the local watch dogs barking furiously!

Outcome (Stats from N1MM logger) :-

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: St Vincent
Operating Time (hrs): 33

Summary:
Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
160:  120     32
80:   376     53
40:   479     48
20:  1129    60
15:   950     54
10:    11       4
-------------------
Total: 3065   251  Total Score = 2,307,192

Average QSO rate throughout was 98 per hour.

Best Rates: over 10 minutes 204/hr    over an hour 155/hr.

Best runs:  160m    98 QSOs at  99/hour
                 80m  170 QSOs at 119/hour
                 40m  129 QSOs at  90/hour
                 20m  186 QSOs at 151/hour
                 15m   90  QSOs at 112/hour

I worked all States, and missed only North-West Territories, Labrador 
and Nunavut from Canada. Even worked the Yukon on 2 bands!

15m was strange, very unstable signals. The band opened for different 
periods either day, and on Saturday it was all East Coast and central 
States, only one Californian and a couple of W7 States. On Sunday it was 
quite different, mostly West Coast.

Good fun, now to sort out the Vertical and add a 40m dipole for the Fone 
(ARRL spelling!) section and BERU.

73 Dave J88DR / G3TBK