[UK-CONTEST] GM1J CQWW 80m QRP (A)

[jim martin]

GM1J SB 80m QRP (A)

Spurred on by previous QRP activities I decided to go QRP on 80m, this
fitted in with my work commitments over the weekend.  However in order to be
heard I reckoned I needed to improved the antenna and find some serious gain
over my existing low trapped dipole.
On holiday I experimented with a top loaded vertical using a 12m Spiderpole
which seemed to work okay.  It had to be very low profile and easy to drop
down on to the flat roof during daylight hours.  During the week I criss
crossed about 40 radials over the roof hoping this would help.  As a
subjective observation, on receive, the vertical was always a couple of S
points up on my dipole. (I may have a problem with water ingress at the
dipole feedpoint which does not help!)  Received signal strengths were good
with some of the DX getting above the local S8 noise which is part of living
in the centre of Edinburgh.
My plan was to operate four sessions, both early mornings and evenings,
hoping for about 10 hours operation and 250Qs.  As always work got in the
way at the critical times but I managed 12 hours at the rig and 300Qs. Very
happy with a mult total of 57 countries and 11 zones.  I spent a lot of time
trying to work some of the better DX just as EU should have been fading out
but the band seemed to close early for me and particularly the Caribbean and
SA stations fell into the noise very quickly.  However some of the east
coast NA stations are amazing in what they can hear.  I had the cluster
switched on but it was no advantage whatsoever (except to spot friends, but
not cheer leading of course!)  By the time I saw what was on the cluster any
DX was buried under the constant callers.  Constantly tuning the band was
the most productive and logging everything I could hear on the band map
helped me get a picture of stations to go back to when the pile died down.
Lots and lots of calling to stations who could not hear me (to be expected)
and the constant callers wiped out most chances of getting through in a
pileup.
Is this the next big challenge, how we educate those who constantly send
their call without listening, almost trying to bully  a QSO out of the CQing
station?
A very enjoyable time, QRP is fun but I suspect I don't have the patience or
the skills to make this a regular occurrence!  Back to QRO with my 50 or 100
watts next time.
73
Jim,  MM0BQI
GM1J