[UK-CONTEST] CQWW CW

[Danny Higgins]

The all-singing, all-dancing SO2R contest/DX rig is still a few weeks away
from completion, so I reverted to the old IC761 again (100W).  My aim was to
fill as many CW bandslots in the log while conditions are good, so any
assistance (e.g. cluster) was welcome.  The antennas were a modest 80M
dipole at about 40 feet with a 40M dipole in series with it at about 30 feet
AGL.  For the HF bands I had a hex beam up a full 12 feet from the ground
with no rotator, so there were numerous trips down the long garden to use
the "Armstrong" rotation method.  I stayed up all night, sleeping for 8
hours on Saturday night, then up again in the morning to continue until
18:00 when domestic duties called.  I probably finished a bit too early as
the last 3 entries in the log were AH0BT, ZK2V and KH6LC, so the bands were
still quite lively.  The QSO rate suffered as a result of sitting too long
in some of the pile-ups, but bandslots were more important than a large
score.  I was most impressed with some of the features in N1MM that I hadn't
tried before, but I left it a bit too late to get fully familiar with the
general operating environment, so ESM kept dropping me out of run mode after
working a reply from a CQ.

 

The final score was:

 

           160   80   40   20   15   10  Total

QSO         3   197  116  152  175  150   793

Countries   3    64   50   71   89   96   138 different

Zones       1    14   13   27   28   31    38 different

 

Total 776, 278

 

You can see from the high Mult/QSO ratio that I spent most of the time
chasing new multipliers.  It was a very enjoyable experience and I have much
to do to improve things for next year.

 

Danny, G3XVR