[UK-CONTEST] [Fwd: Rus DX GI0RTN SO CW LP]

[Gerry Lynch]

After BERU at G6PZ, it's a bit of a shock to come back to operating with 
a ground mounted R7 in a crap QTH.  It isn't too awfully bad on 40 or 
30, actually, but on 15 I am clearly hearing a lot better than people 
hear me.  Lots of people CQ in my face, even at times people who are up 
to S9 on the meter.  Still managed to get one nice cluster assisted run 
on 15 (thanks for the spot, RK1OWA!) and one really good run on 20 on 
Saturday evening.  Missed prime 15m operating time due to work 
commitments on Saturday and church commitments on Sunday.  And I got a 
good night's sleep last night.

At least it was nice to have a contest where the main target area is in 
the direction of salt water within a mile of here, as opposed to being 
on the wrong side of a 1000ft plus mountain, which made a welcome change 
after the pain of ARRL, especially the SSB leg!  But the R7 is crap 
ground mounted.  And verticals here are really noisy (but less noisy 
this weekend when half the street seems to have decamped to Donegal in 
the good wx).  I reckon I can squeeze a 40m delta loop into the back 
garden, and intend to do so feeding it with 450 Ohm twin feeder as soon 
as I can get the requisite roach pole delivered.  Is this in any way a 
bad idea, beyond accepting that it's a compromise and I will never be 
really competitive for as long as I live in this house anyway?

Of course, it's nice to actually have an antenna, not to mention a 
computer networked radio, at home.  This was the first time in years 
I've used N1MM in a CW contest.  I could not work out what the 
equivalent of 'plus' in Writelog/Wintest was- i.e. the button to log the 
exchange and send the TU message.  So I used ESM as F3 plus enter was 
too cumbersome.  It confirmed my view that Enter Sends Message Is The 
Work Of Satan.  Oh, it's fine if everyone is doing the right thing at 
the right time, but add people who insist on sending their callsign 
twice even when they're 20 over 9, or sending 73 TU after a gap 
following the exchange and it always sends the wrong bloody message.

73

Gerry GI0RTN

                    Russian DX Contest

Call: GI0RTN
Operator(s): GI0RTN
Station: GI0RTN

Class: SO CW LP
QTH: Belfast
Operating Time (hrs): 11

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Countries  Oblasts
----------------------------------------
  160:                               
   80:                               
   40:  138              33        22
   20:  294              40        39
   15:   89              15        29
   10:                               
----------------------------------------
Total:  521     0        88        90  Total Score = 521,896

Club: Chiltern DX Club

Comments:

Just goofing around, handing out the GI multiplier in a great contest with great
activity.  Well done to the organisers.  Lots of fun.


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/