[UK-CONTEST] M6T CQWW CW Report

[ANDY COOK]

Contest         : CQ World Wide DX Contest
Callsign        : M6T
Mode            : CW
Category        : Multi Operator - Single Transmitter (MS)
Overlay         : ---
Band(s)         : All bands (AB)
Class           : High Power (HP)
Zone/State/...  : 14
Locator         : JO02RF
Operating time  : 48h00
 
BAND   QSO  CQ DXC DUP  POINTS   AVG 
--------------------------------------
  160   347  18  84   1     597  1.72 
   80  1472  31 127  15    2937  2.00 
   40  1299  38 143   8    2805  2.16 
   20  1292  38 135   9    2817  2.18 
   15  1328  37 152  29    2995  2.26 
   10   169  28 104   1     306  1.81 
--------------------------------------
TOTAL  5907 190 745  63   12457  2.11 
======================================
       TOTAL SCORE : 11 647 295
 
Ops : G0OPB, G3WGN, G4BUO, G4TSH, G4PIQ
 
After missing the SSB leg of CQWW due to family commitments, CQWW CW seemed like 
a good opportunity to try and get the station active again. Unfortunately, there 
was a lot of essential maintenance to do on the station, but the team seemed 
keen to do something. We had a long list of items which required dealing with in 
a priority order and just worked through as many of the as we could until we got 
to the contest. Every tower / antenna on the site needed something doing to it – 
ranging from a simple lifting rope replacement on the 15m tower to a full 6 
man-day debug and repair of the 80m 4 square. We started work the previous 
weekend (and many thanks to G0AEV and M0BCT who didn’t operate the contest for 
helping on the previous weekend) and then continued on the Thursday / Friday 
prior to the contest. The short days and snowfall somewhat slowed progress (we 
have had snow all the time since Thursday morning), but the result of all this 
hard work was that, by midnight, the station was more or less in the same state 
as it was 2 years ago – an extra antenna available on 20m, but no K9AY for low 
band Rx. Dave, G3WGN / WJ6O has recently returned from a few years living in 
California – he must have loved 2 days of solid antenna work in the snow! We 
didn’t get any of the projects which would improve our capabilities completed - 
like a real antenna for 40m - but some of the maintenance jobs were very much 
bigger than expected. 

 
It was great to have some competition with the G6PZ folks who have made 
tremendous improvements to their station since 2008. We thought about posting 
our scores to getscores.org, but foolishly believed the instructions that said 
the available code to do this didn’t work any more! 

 
The contest went pretty seamlessly and other than a few dozes of RF in the keyer 
/ switching due to a hastily lashed together and complex station, none of the 
equipment missed a beat. We thought that conditions were somewhat better on the 
high bands than in 2008, but we didn’t have the super low band conditions of 
that year – we found 160 pretty average. There were some remarkable moments like 
passing a ZS to 80m, having the mult station call him, getting no joy, but 
having 5H3EE call us for a double mult while we were calling the ZS! We had 
quite a lot of snow static on the Saturday, but the tri-bander was largely 
unaffected – presumably because the elements are insulated. Many of the packet 
pile ups were evil – lots of incessant calling when the caller really couldn’t 
hear the station. The folks who went split made life much easier, but these 
pile-ups are an element of packet assisted contesting that I really dislike. It 
was always much nicer when we found a new spot for ourselves. 

 
Thanks to everyone for the QSOs and to Bob, G4BAH for use of the station. See 
you all in the next one.
 
Rig : 2 x FT1000MP + Alpha 87A
 
Ant : 
160m – 33m tall T + Inv-V @ 28m + 580ft NW Beverage
80m – 4 square + Inv-V @ 20m + 580ft NW Beverage
40m – 402CD @ 30m + Delta Loop @ 28m
20m – 204CD @ 30m + 204CD @ 30m + Bencher Skyhawk @ 28m
15m – Extended 155BA @ 30m + Bencher Skyhawk @ 28m
10m – 105CA @ 24m + Bencher Skyhawk @ 28m
 
 
73,
 
Andy, G4PIQ