[UK-CONTEST] CQWW CW

[Peter Day]

I don't get too enthused with 48 hour contests at my old age but thought 
I would have a dabble last weekend in CQWW. I tried to sandwich blocks 
of an hour or two of operating in between building a UHF masthead preamp 
for an old pal of mine in VK6, making my own meals (my XYL was away all 
weekend on a music course!) and spending Sunday afternoon with my young 
grandkids. In the event, without looking too hard for Mults, I managed 
around 19.5 hours total in the contest and found it very useful to fill 
in lots of band slots (especially on 10m where I worked 17 new ones!) 
and to test a little antenna I've been playing with with a view to using 
it under portable conditions such as BERU, Field days, etc. This is the 
G7FEK double inverted L  which many of you may have already seen but may 
have dismissed it as being too simple!

(see:  http://www.g6hoq.com/documents/G7FEK%20Antenna.pdf )

In fact it proved itself to be a nice little antenna, especially as it 
is only 46 feet in length and need be no more than 22 feet high. The one 
I've had up for a few weeks is not ideally situated, the vertical 
section being only 10 feet from the house and below gutter height and 
with only four short radials dropped across the back yard. Yet this 
little antenna has worked the world all bands 80 to 10 over the past few 
weeks. 80m it worked exceptionally well. In the contest I used it on 40 
and 80 instead of my usual centre fed doublet (and even on Topband to 
work a few Eu stations). Obviously it's way down on my A3S beam on 10,15 
and 20m but it's a handy little antenna for the other bands. If you have 
new licensees at your club I'd recommend it as their first antenna as it 
works on all HF bands with little adjustment.

Anyway, I ended up with the following entry for weekend's dabbling :-)

400 watts/FT5000MP + Acom 1010/ A3S (10,15, 20m) G7FEK 160, 80, 40m
(assisted)


Contest         : CQ World Wide DX Contest
Callsign        : G3PHO
Mode            : CW
Category        : Single Operator (SO)
Overlay         : ---
Band(s)         : All bands (AB)
Class           : High Power (HP)
Zone/State/...  : 14
Locator         : IO93GJ
Operating time  : 19h29

  BAND   QSO  CQ DXC DUP  POINTS   AVG
--------------------------------------
   160    10   3   8   0      10  1.00
    80   169   8  38   0     209  1.24
    40   214  14  50   0     304  1.42
    20   290  21  49   1     461  1.59
    15   165  26  60   0     293  1.78
    10   154  26  51   0     294  1.91
--------------------------------------
TOTAL  1002  98 256   1    1571  1.57
======================================
         TOTAL SCORE : 556 134


Not a big score but not to bad either :-)

Now I might be persuaded to take on the full 48 hours next year!


Peter G3PHO