[UK-CONTEST] STEW PERRY - 2011

[Don Beattie]

Took time off from my RSGB duties to get a little real radio this weekend. The SP Contest is always good fun, with its use of locators as the exchange. Doing it on 160 adds to the mix, as copy is often a bit "marginal". This year was no exception.

It all started well - I elected to make a start at 16.00 and soon had a good rate putting mainly European and Asian stations into the log.  A good clutch of JA stations duly arrived around 21.00 and I thought things looked good for the US later. When VO1TA appeared well before his dusk, that was another good omen.

Sadly, it all then started to go downhill. By 23.30, things had slowed, and I chose to take my two hour break then (14 hours is the maximum operating time, and 16.00-08.15 (dawn) forces a two hour or so break). Back on the band at 01.40, and - wideband noise. A quick look into the garden and it was snowing - best quality static charged snow. This lasted about an hour, which was intensely irritating, as copy of the US stations was badly impacted. Frantic fiddling with the noise blanker made some improvement, but only a little. An hour later and it ceased - but the band was not in the shape that I had hoped, and by about two hours before dawn, it was in terminal decline.  In the last two hours I worked just 17 stations - quite dire for what should have been the US peak. In the end only 74 NA/SA stations in the log, but ODX of CE1/K7CA at about 14k km. The score was a tad up on last year, but could have been so much better if only:

....I had been able to predict the lack of propagation at the end, making the two hours break earlier quite unnecessary
....it hadn't snowed
....the band hadn't died quite so completely

But that's what 160 is all about. There's always next year.

Not too many UK stations around in the contest - yes it's a bad time of year, but this is a fun little event.

73

Don, G3BJ