[UK-CONTEST] IOTA Contest GJ6YB - Multi-op DXpedition HP

[Alan Hydes]

Here's a short report from our trip to Jersey...

After our narrow miss, coming second last year, the Bristol Contest Group
ventured back to Jersey for the IOTA Contest as GJ6YB.  A lot of preparation
went into his one - a bigger operating caravan fitted out as a shack, some
new antennas, new catering facilities and some cunning operating plans.  In
the event the plans went out the window as it became clear that 15m and 10m
were going to be a wash-out.

We got the usual odd looks and questions as the convoy rolled onto the ferry
with the mobile towers and caravan.  This year the crossing was smooth and a
few hours later we arrived on our site, to find we were sharing it with
Jersey cows and electric fences.  Luckily neither caused much trouble.  A
couple of days later we were ready to go and had the Friday evening to try
everything out - not our usual method of getting it working with 5 minutes
to go.  20m was really humming that night with 4 hours of JA and Pacific
pile-up.  Unfortunately this amazing propagation didn't carry over into the
contest the following night, although it was reasonable.

During the contest we didn't see any sporadic-E on 10m and just picked off
whatever we could on the Mult station. 15m was about the same except for
some short spells running on Sunday morning.  20m was open till late, but
40m was in excellent shape throughout the night with propagation into North
and South America and Pacific VK/ZL.

The weather was kind to us, with just one heavy shower before the contest.
So, after a pretty much fault free operation this is how out the raw score
looks:

BAND  QSOs MULT   POINTS   AVG 
----------------------------------------
   80  217   85   2163    9.97 
   40 1130  176   7950    7.04 
   20 1636  222   9144    5.59 
   15  294   88   2214    7.53 
   10   40   32    552   13.80 
----------------------------------------
TOTAL 3317  603  22023    6.64 
========================================
        TOTAL SCORE : 13 279 869


All packed up on Monday and time for some sightseeing before heading home.

Thanks to everyone who gave us a shout.

Alan G3XSV