[UK-CONTEST] Commonwealth G4KNO Restricted-24 LP

[Andy Summers]

Call: G4KNO
Operator(s): G4KNO
Station: G4KNO

Class: Restricted-24 LP
QTH: Cambridge
Operating Time (hrs): 21

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  80:   24
  40:   21
  20:   41
  15:   16
  10:    2
------------
Total:  104


Comments:

Bearing in mind I wouldn't consider myself a CW op, I have grown to love
this
contest. Great for small pistol UK stations, offering the ability to work DX
that would otherwise be a struggle through the pile-ups. Additionally, this
is
far from a 'rate' contest, particularly in the restricted section, which
suits
my slower CW. In 2009 I just sent a checklog. In 2010 I sent in a 12-hour
entry, having realised it wouldn’t be daft to do so, and resolved to make a
more serious effort in 2011.

The antenna was a single ground mounted vertical based on a 40ft Spiderbeam
pole. It’s an 80/40m trapped wire (homebrew trap) with the remainder on 80m
tied-off to a nearby fence. I had hoped to do something a bit more fancy for
the HF bands, but in the end just added a fan of ¼-wave elements using
feeder
spreaders. This was on a separate connector, which meant I couldn’t really
switch between 40/20m during the grey-line. The neighbours might have seen
me
swapping the connectors at 8am in my dressing-gown! I put a fair amount of
effort into improving the radial system this spring specifically with this
contest in mind. Even then I have no radials to the south and not many to
the
east, but to the western sector (where the lawn is) there’s the equivalent
of
a 42 radial system, albeit with most of them <50ft long. It definitely
worked
well to the west on 80m in particular, easily beating the pile-ups of casual
ops on the Sunday morning into the Caribbean. Having said that, 80/40m was a
bit dissapointing, with not too many VE's and 40m seemed strangely noisy.

I decided to sleep from 3-6am when things seemed to have slowed up quite a
bit,
but I think this was a bad decision because 20m didn't open to VK/ZL as I'd
hoped and I think I would have been better off trying to get some more VE's
in
the log on 80/40m, possibly CQ-ing. As it was, this effort was entirely S&P.

Several got-aways, the most notable being 9V1YC on 15m on the Sunday morning
who was over S9 with me and yet CQ'd in my face.

I have to say, there were some fantastic ears out there, particularly the
Caribbean travellers. I must have been pretty weak with them. Many thanks to
all for pulling my signal out.

Plans for next year include finding the local noise source on 14.000 (not my
house) that must have cost me some QSO's, a horizontal alternative for the
HF
bands, and more radials!

73 de Andy, G4KNO.