[UK-CONTEST] CQWW - MD6V - 20m SOSB (assisted) Short report

[Dave Sharred]

Hi all

 

Score summary - 800,000 points  / 2436QSO's / 38 zones / 144 Countries - log
still to be checked.

 

We woke up on Friday morning to be greeted by a covering of snow;  we were
just about on the snow line then. Nevertheless, we still put up the beam for
my 20m effort, and also G4XUM's 15m effort, pretty uneventfully.  All was
set up in good time .

 

I didn't see the need to be on at the start, since we expected no real
propagation, so got up at 06:30z. I think this was about right; picked off a
few mults and then settled down to a run.  1st JA was just before 08:00z;
Long path was quite good; but then I had terrific QRM in that direction. I
didn't realise until much later it was a Kitchen light that caused the
problem; only realised later that day !!!

 

1st USA was in the log by 10:53z; so then it was mix of running mainly EU
then USA for the rest of the morning and afternoon.

 

20m was essentially finished by shortly after 1900;  just some mults to pick
off.

 

Generally, 20m seemed quiet on Saturday; and it was easy to find a
frequency. Lots of signals were multipath, with big echos on many stations.
Sunday seemed much busier; I ended up running on 14091 I think; I just
couldn't find a frequency lower in the band !

 

The pattern on Sunday was very similar to Saturday; starting and finishing
at the same times. We suffered snow static very badly on Sunday afternoon;
and even took an hour for luch since then it was near impossible to hear
anyone. After lunch, the noise was less, but still persisted for 2 or more
hours, depending on the severity of the snow.

 

I sweated on a number of mults; the last station was a CE  for zone and mult
!!   The path to KL7 and Pacific isn't ideal; I worked ZL8X and FO8RZ
pointing right though the mountain ! Both signals were on the noise.

 

As commented elsewhere; this year was characterised by many stations that
would just call and call a required mult; they seemed to work on the
principle that if they weren't getting though; no-one else was !!  Another
issue I had was, if I responded to someone with an obviously busted call;
like N3ABC (in this example, clipped by the vox delay) ; I tried to correct
it after the exchange like this:

                                N3ABC 5NN A4  G3ABC

                If I did this, I would guarantee that the station would
still come back with DE G3ABC again!!  So maybe I shouldn't have bothered.

 

I also was surprised by the number of stations that would come to your
frequency and just CQ, without checking it was in use first !!

 

I am surprised at the small number of spots seen for me or Martin (MD4K).
Can't explain this, but we also  both  suspected a growing trend in private
clusters - there were many pile ups that developed, but not consistent with
a spot.

 

I finally arrived home at 01:00z Tuesday morning; had to be in work for
08:00z !!

 

Overall, a good contest, enjoyed it.

 

73

 

Dave

G3NKC/MD6V