[UK-CONTEST] [3830] ARRLDX CW G6PZ(GI0RTN) SOAB HP

[Bob Henderson]

Gordon

I suspect you will only be truly happy once all competition has been
constrained at a level just beneath that of which you are capable.

In the meantime, so long as you can sit quietly in the corner at your local
club wearing a smile upon your face, I will not spend too much time worrying
about you.

My sincere congratulations go to Gerry and Mark for their efforts in putting
the UK on the ARRL DX map.  Great work, an inspiration to other young
contesters.

Better to strive to achieve than to bemoan the achivement of others.

Bob DU9/5B4AGN

>
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: Gordon Brown
>  To: uk-contest at contesting.com
>  Sent: Monday, February 21, 2011 11:18 PM
>  Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] [3830] ARRLDX CW G6PZ(GI0RTN) SOAB HP
>
>
>  Why on earth does any private individual operating from a suburban
> location
>  enter contests and compete against SO entries from commercially supported
> club
>  stations?
>
>  I do it because I have made my station as efficient and effective as I can
> and
>  every QSO is hard fought for and gives me great satisfaction.
>
>  Why does he do it? Just so he can squash people like me and boast about it
>  afterwards.
>  I discover that a SOAB entry gets ten times more QSO'S than me on 40M when
> I am
>  SOSB 40M. A three element beam on 40M does help a little.
>  The point is that newcomers to the world of contesting realize the odds
> are
>  stacked against them and decide to try lawn bowls instead.
>  I say to the newcomer you will get more pleasure and satisfaction from
> your
>  modest setup than the guy with an ACOM2000 running god knows what power to
> a
>  three element beam than he ever will and you will improve your operating
> skills
>  far more than he will.
>  At the end of the day he will get a piece of paper to say he beat you and
> be
>  able to boast about it in the club but you will get satisfaction in the
>  knowledge that you are the better operator. He goes down to his local and
> says
>  I won the ARRL DX Contest and watch his locals yawn. You will go down to
> your
>  local pub and say nothing because you are modest but have a smile on your
> face
>  saying I am well satisfied.
>  You can also take umbrage and decide not to buy any gear from the sponsors
> of
>  his station. By buying your gear from his sponsors you are helping him.
>  A club station should be a club station even if operated by an individual!
>
>  73 Gordon.
>
>
>
>
>  ________________________________
>  From: Gerry Lynch <me at gerrylynch.co.uk>
>  To: UK Contest Reflector <uk-contest at contesting.com>
>  Sent: Monday, 21 February, 2011 12:23:43
>  Subject: [UK-CONTEST] [3830] ARRLDX CW G6PZ(GI0RTN) SOAB HP
>
>  I haven't been to sleep yet since the end of the contest so will save any
>  additional comments for later. Conditions were just downright weird - I
> can't
>  refer to 'bad conditions' in any contest where you run W6s in large
> numbers on
>  both 15 and 80, no matter how distorted they sound when you're running
> them.
>
>  Great competition with M0DXR at G3BJ. Both our scores should be competitive
> at
>  European, and possibly world, level, so I like to think this was not a
> passing
>  of the torch, as others are still around, but certainly the coming of age
> of the
>  latest new generation of UK Contesting. Good that so many of the
> generation
>  after us are already active as well.
>
>
>
>  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>  ARRL DX Contest, CW
>
>  Call: G6PZ
>  Operator(s): GI0RTN
>  Station: G6PZ
>
>  Class: SOAB HP
>  QTH: Somerset,IO81ml
>  Operating Time (hrs): 41.25
>
>  Summary:
>  Band QSOs Mults
>  -------------------
>  160: 131 26
>  80: 518 57
>  40: 1113 57
>  20: 957 59
>  15: 653 51
>  10: 36 22
>  -------------------
>  Total: 3428 282 Total Score = 2,900,088
>
>  Club: Chiltern DX Club
>
>  Comments:
>
>  I'm completely knackered but afraid to fall asleep as I am on the first
> Bristol
>  to Belfast flight this morning and I need to stay awake until the taxi
> comes,
>  so I'm doing my 3830 posting now. This may not be entirely coherent as a
>  comment post.
>
>  Firstly, thanks to Paul for the use of a station which has become what
> Paul set
>  out to make it 9 years ago when he started all this. Took a while, but he
> got
>  there in the end, and the journey has been fun, for Paul and for all of us
> who
>  have operated here. On 40 and 80, I think we are now as loud in the
> Americas as
>  any station actually in Europe (hey you Finns, the Azores don't count!);
> while
>  here on Europe's western edge, we'll never compete with M6T, let alone
> stations
>  further east, into Asia and the Pacific, our big advantage lies on being
> within
>  a few miles of England's south-west coast, and we're making the most of
> that
>  advantage. ARRL DX is the contest to just sit back and enjoy having a
> great
>  station in a great location and spend a week running the many great
> contest
>  operators in the US and Canada.
>
>  The last time I operated ARRL DX CW seriously was in 1992; this was before
> I
>  was licensed - I had passed the technical exam, but I was waiting for the
>  chance to do the morse test in Belfast so I was operating another ham's
> station
>  (since deceased) according to the 'under supervision' provision of UK
> radio
>  licensing law. Ironically, that 'preparation' for my 12 wpm morse test was
> my
>  introduction to CW contesting, and what fun I've had in the intervening 19
>  years! So this weekend was something of a very large wheel coming full
> circle.
>  It's always great to have Paul's station all to yourself; as anyone who
> has
>  operated with me knows, I like *long* operating stints. Still miss the
> gang
>  though - had this been a multi-op effort, I wouldn't be feeling quite so
>  strange just now, and would be probably quite drunk and having a laugh
> with a
>  great bunch of pals. Non-contesting hams just don't know what a great
> sub-hobby
>  this is. You just don't have any other mates like your contesting mates.
>
>  Also, massive thanks to Mark, M0DXR, who operated G5W from G3BJ's place,
> just
>  150km or so to the north of here, also in England's far west, and to Don
> for
>  laying on the station. Knowing a great operator like Mark was pushing me
> every
>  step of the way from a great station and wanted the win every bit as badly
> as I
>  did was a huge motivator for keeping my arse in the chair during the
> miserable
>  hours around sunrise on Sunday and when the ionosphere just didn't want to
> play
>  ball early on Sunday afternoon. Mark made sure I ground out every QSO and
> every
>  mult I possibly could. Mark cleaned my clock on 160 with Don's beverage,
> and I
>  cleaned his on 40 and with mults on 80 - otherwise the honours were even
> and
>  reflected the balance of operating time. Ultimately, 15 extra mults on 160
>  weren't enough to overcome 400 extra Qs on 40; that's the difference
> between a
>  3 ele MonstIR and a 2 ele shorty-forty.
>
>  Thanks also to all the great ops at the other end and especially those
> from
>  rare states and provinces who happily QSYed as long as they had the
> technical
>  capacity to do so, even when I asked them to try some odd skew paths on 10
> or
>  unlikely prospects on 160. Some of those even worked sometimes. My one
> obvious
>  mult mistake was that having moved VO1SA from 15 to 20, I asked him to try
> a
>  weird skew path on 10 (which didn't work) instead of an all daylight path
> on
>  40, which given a relatively short distance all over ocean and the huge
> antenna
>  horsepower here on 40, probably would have worked. Learning point noted!
> And
>  where were all the Newfies this year, anyway? Those were my only 2 QSOs
> with
>  VO1.
>
>  Started the contest with back to back hours of 181 and 174 on 40; nothing
>  special for many. But from boring old England - nobody wastes too much
> time in
>  a pileup on a G station - in ARRL, with crummy conditions, this was pretty
>  good. It also gave be a big early lead over G5W, which despite great
> operating
>  from Mark, especially on 160, he never entirely overcame. I never came
> close to
>  this sort of rate on HF, with a few hours in the 140s on 20 and 15 being
> the
>  next best. Mark thought I might have missed the skew path opening on 10
> and
>  given him an opportunity; apparently I wasn't spotted on the cluster when
> CQing
>  to a bag of mults up there on Saturday mid-afternoon. Well, I have many
> failings
>  as a contest operator, most notably a complete ignorance of electronics
> and
>  inability to so much as use a soldering iron; but I know my propagation
> and
>  when a proper 10 metre opening didn't materialise, given an SFI over 100,
> I
>  wasn't going to forget to go W hunting with my antenna on Brazil, was I?
>
>  Apart from that it was run, run, run some more. With a good signal, no
> SO2R,
>  and no cluster, it usually makes sense just to let mults come to you in
> this
>  one, and move them if you need to. As well as a few mults in the
> northwest, I
>  still had Arkansas missing on 15 as the band closed on Saturday, but knew
> K5GO
>  would be around somewhere and he was the second station I came across as I
>  tuned from my run frequency to the bottom of the band. I also waited a
>  strangely long time for Kentucky on 20, but once the first popped up on
> Sunday
>  afternoon, I think I worked 6 in the following half an hour. Missed
> various
>  western VE provinces on a number of bands but got the full house of US
> mults on
>  80, 40 and 20 with somme of the less populated states in northern W7
> missing on
>  15. Mark got a VE7 on 15 from G5W, but I never heard a sniff here; even WA
> was
>  pretty tough.
>
>  W3DQ does a great job for DC in this contest, even on 80. As a city
> dweller I
>  know how tough that is.
>
>  Setting up on Friday afternoon, I was running stations in the Rockies on
> 10
>  like they were next door. Propagation looked so promising last week but in
> the
>  end it was just beyond crap for long periods. That's contesting. You deal
> with
>  what the propagation gods throw at you as best you can. At least 15 was
> pretty
>  open on Saturday and on bursts late on Sunday afternoon.
>
>  It would have been nice to have a record breaking year and I had fantasies
> of
>  200+ hours on 10 metres but it never happened especially when we came
> close to
>  the magic mark a couple of times on 15 in WW CW with a much lower solar
> flux.
>  Maybe we'll get some 300+ hours on 10 in the SSB leg. Here's hoping.
>
>  I enjoyed this a lot. See you all with the rest of the gang from G6PZ for
> a
>  multi-op effort (not sure if M/S or M/2) in the SSB leg. Better run. Taxi
> is
>  here soon.
>
>  73
>
>  Gerry Gi0RTN
>
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