[UK-CONTEST] GM1J EU92 IOTA Report

[mm0bqi]

It started out so well…………

Managed to get all the prep done by Wednesday evening ready for the 0300
alarm call on Thursday morning.  I had hoped that giving myself a complete
day and a half to set everything up would be enough.  It was, but at a
price!

The 250 mile journey was uneventful with breakfast at Tesco in Inverness,
last decent meal for a few days.  Arrived at Achiltibuie in plenty of time
to unload the gear onto the jetty and park the car.  The kit list for my
‘simple station’ included the following.

Laptop (plus full sized keyboard) with N1MM logger, K3, IC7400, Heil
headset/foot switch MK2R+ SO2R controller, Remote antenna switch and control
box, band pass filters, band decoders, power supplies, SWR meter and MFJ
analyser.   Rucksack full of connecting cables, 300m of Westflex, five
SpiderBeam poles,  five antennas, 100m mains cable and spare genny, just in
case.  On the domestic front, large tent, cooker, food, sleeping bag and
personal kit.  It’s amazing what you can get in the back of a Quashqai.

Arrived on Tanera about 1030 and set about pitching the operating tent and
getting the gear out of the steady rain that was falling.  Forecast was for
light winds and a drier afternoon so good news for antenna building.  The
chosen site was as close as I could get to the sea shore, still about 30m
away but close enough to get the main antennas sitting just above the water.
The old favourite 40m quarterwave vertical was first up, feedpoint about 2m
agl with four elevated radials and coax balun at the feed point.  Next was
the new 20m vertical dipole, bottom of the dipole 1m agl and the coax coming
away from the pole at right angles running along a 6 foot garden cane then
at 45 degrees to the ground.  On flat ground these poles are so simple to
put up, roughly locate four guy ropes at right angles walk the pole up and
adjust, simples.  On uneven, heather covered boggy ground it’s a nightmare.
The base of the pole was sitting on a ‘hump’ about 2m high so up and down
the hump like the Grand old Duke of York to adjust the guys and get it
sitting vertical.  The DX performance of this antenna was excellent.  Many
more AS, NA and SA in the log over previous years but sadly there seemed to
be a big gap into G and the near continent.  As there are a huge number of
mults and 15 pointers in this 500-1000 mile area I think my score suffered
because of this.  I really need to set up the vertical dipole and say a
quarter wave ground plane side by side down at the caravan and do some
proper comparisons.  That is on the to do list.

Having got the tent and the two antennas up I went for the big one.  My 18m
SpiderPole had a rough time here two years ago when it snapped in two places
during a storm so the plan was to go very gentle with it and ease it into
the air with a single wire quarter wave for 80m.  I extended the bottom half
of the pole and set the guys up, thought it best to get this bit right
before putting up the whole 18m.  Went up okay with lots of running about
setting guy lengths and fighting through the bracken and heather.  Extended
the pole to full height, set up the top guys and during final lift SNAP!
Clean break just above the bottom section. Simple enough to fix by
collapsing the bottom sections but then there was all the time needed to
re-set the guys and get it back vertical.  Possibly five hours in total
spent on the 80m antenna which in the end I hardly used.

Exhausted after my 18 hour day collapsed into sleeping bag, looking forward
with optimism to the coming few days.   Friday morning wind had dropped so
midges were out in force.  My best ever investment was £10 for a beany hat
with a sewn in midge net, looks daft but works a treat.  The 10m and 15m
vertical dipoles went up with the same struggle as the 20m, setting guy
lengths and fixing the coax along the cane.  For both antennas the bottom of
the dipole was about 1m, off the ground.  Again great DX performance but
both lacking close-in coverage.  Neither had any form of balun or choke and
this only seemed to be a problem on 15m.  This aerial became unusable due to
feedback, anything over a few watts and the rig would take off.  I tried
coax chokes and a Ferromagnetics choke in the tent but nothing made any
difference. In the end I used the 40m GP on 15m and this worked to good
effect.  Sunday morning on 10m was fun with 150 or so Qs in about an hour
and a half.  Great QSO rate but only 12 mults, clearly not a good use of
operating time!  Friday night shattered but enjoying the island and my time
playing radio but lack of sleep was catching me up.

Saturday morning everything tested okay after severe problems with the new
laptop running Windows 7 constantly losing audio settings.  Feedback and
audio quality issues were addressed and I got reasonable reports from a few
stations.  Next year it will certainly be ‘SEK chokes on ALL the antennas
and spares for inside the tent.

The contest started well enough on 20m but it’s such a struggle to find a
clear and useable frequency in amongst all the high power non island
stations calling CQ.  Non-island to non-island QSOs should be banned, IOTA
is about promoting island activity so in my opinion these Qs have no place
in the contest.  Disappointed to hear so many stations working above 14300,
at least 10 mults noted that I could not work.  Managed okay until early
evening then fell off my perch, slightly recharged after a walk and evening
meal but no appetite for late night on 80 so only made 18 Qs on the band.  The
evening mood was not helped by a leaky tent and midges you could stir with a
spoon.  One unanticipated problem was a rather fat caterpillar stuck under
my enter key. Each time I removed a keytop to get it out it moved so I ended
up removing a dozen keys before evicting him!  As he was very fat just
squidging him under a key was not an option!  Went to bed, slept through the
alarm and woke seven hours later!

Sunday morning was wet and very, very windy, everytime the tent flexed water
dripped down onto the gear.  Sitting under a groundsheet inside the tent was
not ideal but it kept the kit dry.  At some point my 40m and 20m antennas
fell down.  Took me a good while to notice as I had no SWR meter on that
BPF, next year must have both outputs constantly monitored.  The contest
finished on a high with a great run on 10m lots of adrenalin but very few
mults.

Lots to think about for next year.
More rest before the contest!!
New tent

SO2R is great fun but needs loads and loads of practise.  Need to do more
SO2R contests from home.  Overall SO2R effect was a decrease in QSO numbers.

Maybe a horizontal low dipole for 10-20 to fill in the EU gaps?

An extra day on the Island, arrive Wednesday, setup and have Friday as a
rest day.  Only managed 15 hours operating this year as I was
exhausted.  Another
eight hours operating and I would have reached my 1300 Qs and 250 mults
target.
Overall a great weekend, IOTA really is the best contest in the world!   Always
something more to do but well focused for next year.  Already booked my
return trip so see you all from the Summer Isles next year.
 Band  Mode  QSOs    Pts  IOT
   3.5  CW       2      30    2
   3.5  LSB     16     216   11
     7  CW      22     258   13
     7  LSB    193    1287   34
    14  CW      13     159    9
    14  USB    402    2118   51
    21  CW       7      57    3
    21  USB     63     417   17
    28  USB    156     780   13
 Total  Both   874    5322  153
Score: 814,266

73

Jim,  MM0BQI
GM1J, EU092
Videos and photos will be uploaded once I get home after the holidays.