[UK-CONTEST] CQWW CW G3YMC SO AB QRP

[Dave Sergeant]

Since everybody else is posting reports, here is mine from one of the 
'midget' stations:

            160m  80m  40m  20m  15m  10m  Total
 
Valid QSOs:    0   60  200  250  200  160   870
Countries      0   25   43   47   60   38   213
Zones:         0    5    9   10   16   16    56

Overall 77 DXCC 19 Zones 363,688 points

K2, 5W. Antennas a low 65 ft longwire, 3/4 wave vertical for 15m.

For the past few years I have done single band entries. This year with 
the improved HF conditions I decided to go back to all band, with 
emphasis on the higher bands. I have no 160m antenna at the moment (the 
longwire  is worse than wet string) and the wire is pretty lousy on 
80m. Operating time around 25 hours, with no over night operation.

You will see from the QSO numbers that I like round numbers. I wanted 
to give the 3 higher bands equal coverage so after working 50 stations 
on one band I moved to the next one, something that also gave me a 
little goal to aim for. I had hoped to get 10m up to 200, but by the 
time I got down there late on Sunday afternoon propagation was already 
on the way out. 20m on contrast was an easy band to get a good scoring 
rate, admittedly mainly 1 pointers. My points per QSO was only 1.6. 
Although I worked quite a few of the DXPeditions I didn't hang around 
to break pileups so there was lots I missed. Nothing worked from the 
Pacific unfortunately. I echo points made elsewhere of stations not 
sending their calls very often, something that slows us search and 
pounce people down a lot.

One slight glitch was that on Saturday morning I found the 'E' key on 
my old laptop was sticking. In an attempt to sort that out I removed 
the key cap and then couldn't work out how to reassemble the bits of 
plastic, so spent the rest of the contest poking my finger down the 
hole to the contact. Better I suppose than not working any stations 
with an E in the call... Managed to get it reassembled yesterday, but 
would probably have broken the plastic bits if I had tried a rush 
repair.

Quite pleased with my end result, higher than I have ever done on QRP. 
But rather depressed when I see G4DBW has submitted an all band QRP 
entry with 657k points. Oh well, one less piece of wallpaper this 
year..

73 Dave G3YMC

http://www.davesergeant.com