[UK-CONTEST] [3830] ARRLDX CW G6PZ(GI0RTN) SOAB HP
Gerry Lynch
me at gerrylynch.co.uk
Mon Feb 21 16:37:19 PST 2011
What a bizarre post! I take it you were in your local this evening and
had a few more pints of mild ale than your usual quota?
Paul is generous in allowing guests to use his station which, apart the
Icom sponsorship, is entirely paid for my him and more-or-less entirely
built and maintained by him. I'm not sure I'd call it a club station -
none of the rest of us make any financial contribution to it, I'm just
lucky enough that Paul seems to enjoy me coming over to Cornerstones to
play radio. The vast majority of people who operate from G6PZ either
have very modest home stations or none at all, and no capacity to do
so. I now fall in the latter category myself. The vast majority of
people who operate from G6PZ are aged under 30, which I was when I
started operating there.
If there's a problem for newcomers to contesting in this country, it's
the almost complete dearth of good fixed club stations with a relatively
open operating policy. Compared with their German or Eastern European
counterparts, a young British or Irish contester who has got a taste for
the game from a very limited home station has few options for developing
their skills at a good club station. This is doubly problematic as the
UK also has spectacularly high land prices and spectacularly rigid
planning laws, which are major obstacles for anyone trying to build a
competitve contest station. So good for Paul for giving so many young
contesters - me included - a chance to mix it with the big boys.
The idea that people doing competing at the top level of contesting is
somehow a discouragement for people competing for fun is just mad. I
never found my enjoyment of playing rugby was diminished by the
awareness that I would never in a million years be a Rory Best, let
alone a Schalk Burger or a Ritchie McCall. And competing at the top
level can be done at a range of equipment levels. What G3YMC does in
putting in consistent Top 10 QRP finishes with 5 Watts and wires is just
as skilled as running 200+ hours from G6PZ or M6T or GM7V. It's a
different skillset, but just as challenging and just as interesting to
learn.
The vast majority of contests I have entered have been from home. I
have never owned an amplifier, or lived in the sort of location where I
could run an amplifier without risking a good lynching by the
neighbours. Over the years, my antennas have mostly been crappy
compromise multi-band verticals, at my previous house I had a low 40m
delta loop, which was no great shakes although quite a fun experiment,
and the best antenna I've ever had at home was a nice high 80m doublet
suspended off a roach pole.
Last year, I entered ARRL CW with a ground mounted R7 from an urban back
garden in my old house near Belfast Castle. From there, at an elevation
of about 20m, the summit of Cavehill (371m asl) is less than a mile
away, on a bearing of 300 degrees. Cavehill is made of basalt.
As you can imagine this does not make for being a strong signal in North
America. Almost every QSO was a struggle, although mostly it was a
struggle for the people at the other end trying to pick my signal out of
the noise, and a test of their skill in copying a signal that must have
been just barely above the noise floor. I just had to tune the band for
send my callsign repeatedly.
I enjoyed it more than I thought and spent far longer than I'd planned
on the air. Made just over 400 QSOs, and some of them were a nice
surprise multiplier for the guy at the other end, which was part of what
kept me operating for so long.
Despite having such a transparently limited and poorly located station,
had I gone SOSB 40, and come out with only 10% of my 40m QSO total this
year - i.e. 111 contacts - I wouldn't be bragging about how great my
operating skills were. Especially when so many of them were dependent
on people having full sized monobanders at the other end.
73
Gerry Gi0RTN
PS - being open and welcoming to newcomers is important, but any
activity which is masterable by a newcomer in a matter of weeks to
months is going to be unsatisfying in the long run. Amateur radio in
general and contesting in particular is an avocation that one can spend
a lifetime trying to master and still have too much to learn by the
end. That's what's so captivating about it.
PPS - I was going to say something about how the best QSO of the weekend
was with K3WWP on 80m. He runs a great website on operating with wire
antennas from the bottom of a deep valley in the middle of a
Pennsylvania mining town, and he works some great DX, sometimes with 5W
and sometimes with miliwatt power. But anything I would say would now
be seen as a response to your mad, bitter, ramble.
On 21/02/2011 23:18, Gordon Brown wrote:
> 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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