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

Mon Feb 21 17:26:42 PST 2011

I had long been a sceptic of contest radio but I took the plunge last year
and got involved in SSB Field Day in September with my club (Ripon and
District ARS). The whole event was a major eye opener from the logistics,
the technical challenges and the sheer amount of mental preparation that
needed to be put into something I had previously denigrated as being a
pointless activity.

As a small club we had the opportunity to come together and take part. Some
club members are hardened operators, some are technobods, some are
insomniacs but we operated as a team! I suppose that I am lucky enough to
live in the middle of nowhere which actually poses a different set of
challenges to operating in a dense urban area but the main point is taking
part. 

Contesting is fun - coming from a previously hardened contestsceptic that is
praise indeed! The whole buzz was amazing. We didn't care less if we got
placed or not. The fact that we'd had a great weekend with a BBQ, Ibuprofen,
RF and good coffee was all that mattered. Good, honest fun.

We were chuffed to bits that we got published in the mainstream AR press
(Radcom and PW) but that wasn't the goal. We are now looking to this year
and how we as a club can do better. Surely this is fulfilling the spirit of
amateur radio where we self learn. If we end up having a top notch SSB Field
Day station as a result of iterative modification, isn't this just the
essence of the hobby? Some people will take that to the epitome of being the
top contest stations for a little while in time; meanwhile others will be
chasing them and learning and being inspired from their achievements.

We too fought hard and long for every QSO and we got great collective
satisfaction from it. Stuff the big stations! Just get stuck in there with
the melle Gordon, enjoy what you do and sup a pint at the end of the event
knowing that you've not hurt anyone that weekend, done something productive
and touched the world by just taking part. When you are musing over the head
on a pint of Wadsworth 6X and someone asks you, "What have you done this
weekend?" you can answer, genuinely, "I have spoken to the world."

73, Rob M0RBY

-----Original Message-----
From: uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Gordon Brown
Sent: 21 February 2011 23:19
To: uk-contest at contesting.com
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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