[UK-CONTEST] CQ 160 CW - G3LET

[Peter Hobbs]

Very well done to Don for his "casual" effort!  This was also a first for me and I'd tried to learn lessons from a single band (160) sortie in CQWW, ARRL 160 and the SP, by attaching another quarter wave to the top of my 250 ft sloper and bringing it down in a different direction.  The aim of this was to improve the signal into the south and east (the main wire slopes down to the NW, which favours N America and to some extent JA at the expense of most other directions).  The main current node would also be elevated another 60 ft (I thought).  Some improvement to the East for sure, but at the expense of very bad news indeed on the main lobe to the States, which meant I could only run for brief periods, with a lot more S&P than usual being necessary.  The antenna revamp happened at the last minute (of course!) and I hadn't allowed for feeding into quite a low impedance (3/4 wave) without a matching ground system.  Finding a usable slot below 1825 was usually impossible, although like Don I had an extended run-in with an OL, who seemed to think his huge clicky signal allowed him to return to "his" channel whenever he chose.  

On the positive side, what I'd thought would be the barren wastes above 1850 actually worked, with regular activity extending up to 1900 and several DX stations ending up there.  During the peak Saturday morning period, I think I must have been spotted, resulting in a US queue for over an hour on 1875 and a large proportion of my state mults. I think I must have been one of the "few" to heed the suggestion in the rules to make use of the whole band.  At other times, I was really grateful to the 54 G's (including you Dave YMC!) who took pity and to the many other UK callers not included in that total.  A real frustration was spending what seemed hours in futile attempts to raise CE1/K7CA, often a better signal than in the SP when he'd come back immediately.

Apart from the unparalled Saturday morning opening, conditions seemed pretty average overall (OK, we've been spoiled in recent years), but with a different antenna configuration it's hard to say for sure.  There were JAs around, but not like in the SP and far fewer country mults were available than in the  CQWW.

A quick count up reveals the following (as always, subject to what SD finds in post checking):

2 pointers        54
5 pointers        954
10 pointers        226
(Total QSOs        1234)

Country Mults        75 (gotaways included VQ9, UK, CE, YV, P4)
State Mults        42 (many more heard calling others but didn't get hijacked - no space!)

Claimed Score:        835,146

All in all an enjoyable if frustrating weekend, definitely one not to be missed and with several lessons learned.

73, Peter G3LET