[UK-CONTEST] May 23cm UKAC - Report

[Ray James]

Hi all,

Conditions were not as bad as I had expected on Tuesday night.
Noticed that Monday had produced some exceptional 2m results from CU to G, F, ON and PA around 3,000km and did wonder if this may have carried over to the next day and generated something on 23cm but unfortunately it didn't. 

As usual I did a lot of CQ'ing on SSB/CW and the majority of contacts were generated that way plus careful listening after each contact.
Out of 36 contacts, just 9 required the use of ON4KST for schedules.
Running 150w into 4x44's obviously generates a substantial ERP and the result of this and my very narrow antenna beamwidth is that often I hear nobody tailending until I adjust the bearing when up they pop out of the noise from nowhere. Hence, I would fully agree with Sam's suggestion to listen on the frequency after completeing a contact but would add a check either side of beam heading as well would be beneficial before the next CQ. The only explanation I can come up with is that those running with a reasonable ERP have the added advantage of their signal being reflected on the path and local to stations further afield which lower ERP station replies go unheard until some bearing adjustemnt is made at the other end. The moral therefore is for those running lower ERP to be patient (difficult sometimes in a contest!) and certainly not think the station they're calling are deaf, and for those running high ERP to use their rotator controls a little bit
 more.      

Aircraft were plentiful and produced some impressive reflections.
Kjeld OZ1FF and I are well used to observing the flight path between us for opportunities to take advantage, often just one in the two hours the NAC and UKAC run together. Typically the refleced signal slowly appears, burbles between 519 and 539 for a minute or so before gradually vanishing into the noise. Not so on Tuesday!
Whilst we had the typical start and quickly completed all the necessary information exchanges, Kjeld went on to call CQ so I stayed to listen in case any other contacts ensued. The signal just got louder and louder, eventually peaking 569 and the duration must have been in the region of 5 or 6 minutes. Very impressive to listen to.
Hans PA0EHG was also worked again by the same means but with a more typical reflection. 

One rare aspect I did suffer with on Tuesday was horendous multipath distortion on a handful of stations which took out letters and numbers on both CW and SSB. Geography didn't matter!
Despite having no problems with many stations in IO83, G3WBB (CW) was lost completely due to readability of his very good morse. Ian GM3SEK down in IO74 presented a massive inteligibility problem and David M0GHZ must have thought I was crackin' up when I had I said more than once "I can't understand what your saying!".  

Activity from GM was "level" with at least 13 stations active though not all were able to make contacts. Wind and rain put a dampener on the potential for /P operation.

My QSO map can be viewed at http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://www.rsgbcc.org/vhf/kml_files/2011/U9TMSwJXJz8uRQvKihRcXAItm96n4fh

73 Ray GM4CXM IO75TW