[UK-CONTEST] IOTA 2011

Fri Aug 5 01:35:19 PDT 2011

Ummmmmm - travel on the Wednesday?????   Thats what we used to do, have 
the whole of Thursday to erect antennas, finish Friday, erect and check 
the station, good night's sleep of Friday - Contest Saturday........... 
d'oh!    600lbs seems a tad excessive considering you are using 
fibrestick verticals??

BTW Jim, I didnt hear you once, although I confess to having no low band 
antennas at the moment.

I wish I could raise the enthusiasm again to take part!

Tom
GM4FDM

On 05/08/2011 09:05, mm0bqi wrote:
> Here here, hard work but great fun.
>
> Still need to do a proper write up for the contest but a couple of things
> have come out in the wash so far.
> Prep time is never enough to get the whole station dismantled packed up and
> transported 250 miles.
> Time on the island is never enough.  Even with very simple antennas,
> vertical dipoles and groundplanes on fibreglass fishing poles, the amount of
> trudging about through the midge infested heather is huge! Once it is all
> done and you are sitting back in your tent on your idyllic little island you
> are knackered,  must be old age I could only manage 16 hours this year!
> Rough timetable.
> Promise yourself throughout the year you will perfect your SO2R abilities
> and enter more contests........
> Do all the prep work and packing  in the days before departure as there is
> no where in the house to store all the gear, all whilst working 10 hour
> days.
> Drive 1000 miles the two days before leaving.
> Leave at 0330 on the Thursday morning and drive 250 miles to catch the boat
> at 0930
> Move all the kit from the basement to the house, from the house to the car,
> from the car to the jetty, load the boat from the jetty, unload to
> the island pier, load on to the trailer, unload at the operating site. I
> recon a minimum of 600lbs of kit moved seven times.
> Pitch the tent
> Run out 500m of cable or should that be stumble out?
> Erect five aerials on uneven boggy ground
> Setup the station
> Enjoy yourself and call CQ contest with your 100w into a wall of high power
> fixed stations hundreds of miles from the sea who run hundreds of Qs an
> hour, why can't anybody hear me.............must be the location it's
> rubbish!!
> Yes IOTA for me is the best contest in the world by far, but need to rethink
> the strategy for next year and make sure I can operate for the full 24
> hours.  It's a long way to travel to fall asleep at the mic!
>   Lots more to come on the contest and how the vertical dipoles performed.
> For now its off to start the adjudication process, should be done by
> October!
> 73
> Jim, MM0BQI
> GM1J from the Summer Isles EU92. (Already booked for next year)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2 August 2011 10:10, GORDON BROWN<gordonbrowns at virginmedia.com>  wrote:
>
>> Yes Bernie it is hard work with a small dipole in the loft and 10 Watts but
>> it is fun - most contests are.
>> As one ticks off the years on the calendar of life it gets harder and
>> harder
>> to keep going for even 24 hours.  In my youth I did 48 hours during CQWW
>> etc. but those days have slipped away.  I did manage almost 24 hours but
>> once I reached my 700 QSO target I gave up.
>> Two days later I have almost recovered.
>> It was FUN FUN and well worth the effort.
>>
>> Gordon G1N
>>
>>
>> On 31 July 2011 19:28, Bernie McIntosh (GM4WZG)<gm4wzg at kars.org.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Operated from home this weekend. Give or take some time for meals, and an
>>> overnight pause for some sleep (I know, I'll never be a proper hard core
>>> contester will I ?) I tried to do the full 24 hours.  Generally poor
>> condx
>>> and I thought there was less participation than in recent years. Some
>> more
>>> distant islands were workable though from a simple station like mine and
>> I
>>> was pleased overall with the multiplier count considering that I was 100w
>>> with a stealth wire antenna. In fact it's a good demonstration of what
>> can
>>> be done with CW from a suburban house with no real scope for proper
>>> antennas, particularly for the lower bands.  In fact IOTA is a great
>>> contest
>>> for those with simple stations because its more about hunting around for
>>> the
>>> mults than just using a big station to run.
>>>
>>>
>>> Grateful thanks to all those island activators who make this event
>>> possible.
>>> Thanks also of course to the organisers/adjudicators.
>>>
>>> Its great to be a fifteen point station even in the common EU-005.
>>> Definitely helps in getting interest, often from other 15 point stations.
>>>
>>> Unchecked score for the CW 24 hour single op assisted low power section
>> is
>>> below.
>>>
>>>   Band    QSOs    Pts  IOTA
>>>    3.5     100     864   42
>>>      7     180    1224   51
>>>     14     258    1650   65
>>>     21      44     540   33
>>>     28      26     210   11
>>>   Total     608    4488  202
>>> Score: 906,576
>>>
>>>
>>> Bernie
>>> GM4WZG
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
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