[UK-CONTEST] CQWW G4IIY

[Ian & Steph Fugler (G4IIY)]

A quick report from me.  I set myself a target of 2m points and reached it at 2345.  I was beginning to regret taking such a long sleep on Saturday night and a couple of hours with the family on Sunday evening.  But I switched to 20m at 2330 and worked a few south American double mults.  I then worked an HB9 on 40m at 2345 for a final mult that took me to 2m points.

Highlights: 

Running west coast Ws on 20m for what seemed like hours, including a stack of 2x3s;

Working two new countries on 160m (6Y and EY) - ok not exactly rare DX, but my topband aerial (an inv L) is rather poor;

Working z.19 on 80m for the first time;

Seemed to have cured the ADSL drop out, when using more than 100W on 160m; and

Being called on 10m by MM3T, after deciding to put out a speculative CQ.


Lowlights:

Messed up 40m strategy.  I went there far too late on both days.  By the time I got there on Sunday, someone had switched off the band, although it did recover slightly.  Missed a load of easy mults as a result. A strong case for SO2R;

Relying on the cluster to tell me the callsign of the 'big gun' stations sending at huge speed and dropping a dit dit in between QSOs, but no callsign.  When the callsign does come, it is totally unexpected and sent at 50(?) wpm.  Twice the spotted callsign was in fact wrong.  This "anonymised dit dit/no callsign" phenomenon is becoming increasingly the norm and I dislike it.  Perhaps I'm just getting to that grumpy stage, though.

Accidentally switching off the alarm, as opposed to hitting snooze and oversleeping by two hours.


Thanks for the G multipliers on 15m and 20m, which I often struggle with being away from the more active areas of England.

Ian


Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  188    10       48
   80:  710    19       81
   40:  467    23       91
   20:  881    25       86
   15:  135    22       58
   10:    3     2        3
------------------------------
Total: 2384   101      367  Total Score = 2,012,400

FT1000MP, Explorer amp, A3S, 80m and 40m quarter wave verticals and 160m inv L.