[UK-CONTEST] ARRL 28 - G4FKA SO LP Mixed

[geoff plucknett]

Hoorah for some propagation at last. As Dave has already mentioned, the
last decent year for this event was 2002. It was possible to make good QSOs
all over the place from a small station, without fear of cluster driven
pile-ups. Then the sun went to sleep and my QSO totals from 2003-10 were
94, 32, 6, 31, 15, 24, 39 and 45. So this year's total is more than the
combined total of 2002 to 2010. What a difference a year makes!

First signals appeared on Saturday around 0545, with the first local QSO at
0622 and the first non-UK QSO at 0716. Thee band stayed active until 1700
after which it began to fade and everything was gone by 1800. On Sunday the
band arose slightly later with the first local QSO at 0653 and the non-UK
QSO arriving at 0710. However the band stayed open longer with the last QSO
around 1900 and final NA/SA signals disappearing around 1930.

Station was the IC756 ProIII, with two sloping wire dipoles, one oriented
NE (centre at 5m) and one NW (centre at 7m).

Decided to enter mixed mode to get a balance of rate and mults. Breaking
SSB pile-ups is generally more of a challenge these days so the greater
part of the time was spent on CW.

The statistics are:

CW- Qs 405, Mults 89
SSB - Qs 161, mults 57
Totals - Qs 566, mults 146.

A raw score of 282, 948.

All in all a very rewarding weekend and although there were many that "got
away" it is a pleasure to finally have some results on 28 after rather too
long a barren spell.

Geoff G4FKA