[UK-CONTEST] SSB FD G3SJJ/P

[Chris G3SJJ]

  An excellent weekend. Wx perfect on Friday and Saturday but cooler on Sunday. Band conditions were reverse, 20m was disappointing on Saturday but a 
great opening to Asia on Sunday.

Dave G3ZQH and I provided and set up all the masts, antenna, tents, equipment etc between us except for the generator. The only (welcome) assistance 
we had was Yvonne my wife making us an excellent Chilli CC and Farmer Brian bringing his JCB to remove the guy stakes! We even made ourselves a superb 
Full English breakfast on Sunday morning. We managed about 3 hours sleep each, broken up because we under estimated the amount of petrol we had and 
had to refill when the genny stopped over night and then go in search of a filling station when we ran out completely at 0700 Sunday!

We experienced a few niggles like the mHam Keyer / SR20 microphone switch box not always bringing in the audio line when either of us pressed our foot 
switches. Also the  mHam Router s/w decided not to re-record messages after I had accidentally deleted my CQ. We used Dave's CQ by just keeping him as 
the named operator in the Control O setting until we also deleted that so had no DVK after midnight!

FT1kMP with 1.8KHz filters in main rx and 2kHz filter in sub rx, 2 laptops and N1MM, which was bomb-proof as usual.

The antenna was a 176ft doublet with links at 84ft and 42ft. The two 50ft masts were positioned 84ft apart so it was quick and easy for us quickly 
lower each halyard, twist or untwist the link and haul it back up again. 54ft of light open wire feeder was terminated with a switchable 1:1 / 4:1 
balun and the internal FT1kMP ATU used to make the final match. We used the shorter section on 15m for a while but found it too sharp for the JAs as 
it was end on to them.

The matching system worked OK but the MP internal ATU was slow and "clunky." Just after the end of the contest I tried my 30 year old home made beefy 
Z Match and found tuning up on 20/15/10 very quick and smooth. Unfortunately the genny ran out of petrol again and I didn't get to check 80/40 but I 
am sure it would have been just as good. I think on reflection the old low-tech approach would have been preferable for the weekend, as well as more 
efficient.

Afterwards we were very tired but pleased that the efforts of a 65 and 55 year old had worked out so well!!

Band    Qs      Pts   Cty
3.5     193     912   19
7       232    1019   24
14      103     424   30
21      112     418   25
28        3      15    1
Total    643   2788   99
Score : 276,012

Chris G3SJJ