[UK-CONTEST] CQWW/CW

[Darren G0TSM]

I have never made many QSOs in CQWW/CW before, I recall my highest QSO 
count may have been a couple of hundred S&P QSOs from TF two years ago. 
This year I thought I'd have a bash and see how easy it would be to work 
500 stations on 10M and how many DXCC and zones I could bag along the 
way, but operating with 100W and running assisted to help with the DXCC 
total.

The antennas were a 5 ele yagi @50ft with a 4 ele yagi @25ft on the 
sub-Rx of the FTDX5000. I used the RBN skimmed spots from VE7CC to 
populate a 'Mult list' in Writelog as it turned out that the bandmaps 
couldn't handle the amount of stations being added into them. But a 
presented list of mults is great fun to chase and try to clear.

Zones missed were 1, 19 and 27.  had to give up on zone 27 as the 
pileups were manic. Only 1 JA was heard and worked but two ZLs were 
worked, ZM4A and ZL3JT. I managed zone 31 by working KH6LC on Sunday 
evening when he was alone CQing, I thought I would missed that one as I 
forget to check the longpath openings in our mornings.

Quite a few stations were unreadable due to multipath echoes, even some 
Far East and East Coast USA were difficult to read. MD4K and GJ2A were 
very difficult QSOs so thanks to those guys for persisting with me where 
they could have carried on running 3 point Ws.

When I was S&P I used both Rx's with the sub-rx tracking the main but 
around -5KHz difference. I was surprised how many stations this picked 
up that I had just tuned past on the main Rx.

Totals were
510QSOs
138 dxcc (inc IT9)
37 zones
205,450 pts

My next station improvement here will be to make some form of 
switching/matching so I can transmit into both antennas but on receive 
feed them separately to the two receivers. This would allow me to park 
the lower antenna to AF or SA while running to AS or NA. This should 
help me hold on to my run freq or pick up extra mults/callers, even if 
just EU on scatter

One thing that did show up lately was that I've lost many dBs of gain on 
my 10M 5ele Yagi. When both antennas are beaming USA the 5 ele has been 
2 to 3 S units better that the lower 4 ele Yagi. To VK and the Far East 
the 5 ele was up to 7 S units better than the lower antenna. The 5 ele 
is designed to be a dual band 6M and 10M Yagi with 5 elements on each 
band from one feeder (the 10M driven element is fed). The 6M elements 
are all Parasitic and should be invisible according to EZNEC and MMANA. 
However in the week before the CW contest I added the 6M elements, the 
SWR and F/B on 10M remains as per EZNEC. But, now there is no difference 
between the 5 ele @50ft and the 4 ele @25ft in all directions.
I have been working away this week so have retracted the tower, and now 
both antennas are 25ft high and are broadside when beaming USA. When I 
got in last night I tuned around listening to USA for a couple of hours 
and this showed that the 5 ele is 1 to 2 S units down on the 4 ele Yagi. 
Quite bizzare! I have a day off today so will remove the 6M elements and 
see if it restores the gain.

73 Darren G0TSM