[UK-CONTEST] ARRL DX CW G3YMC QRP

[Dave Sergeant]

No postings on last weekend's ARRL contest yet?....

Summary:

Band              160    80    40    20    15    10   Total
QSOs                0     2    35    31    82     0    150
QSO points          0     6   105    93   240     0    450
States/Provinces    0     2    14    18    28     0     62

Claimed score: 27,900

I had not entered this event in vengeance for several year, but was 
hoping that with the improved conditions the weekend would be fun. 
Unfortunately old father Sol let us down, and with the solar flux 
hovering around 100 and the K index up to 5 for much of the time, it 
was a real disappointment. The MUF clearly never got up to 10m, and I 
heard nothing on there apart from the occasional EA8. 15m turned out to 
be the bread and butter band, even there it was tough going on QRP and 
there was much I couldn't raise. 20m was the real disaster, and until 
the evening I could barely hear any USA/VE stations - it was not till 
Sunday evening that I made some progress there, but it was pretty 
pathetic. No serious LF antennas, no USA/VE heard on top band, Saturday 
morning only heard a few on 80m but Sunday was a bit better (my 2 QSOs 
were on Saturday..). 40m was OK for a while but couldn't get a decent 
rate (and not being a night rake only operated after dawn). Those with 
beams obviously worked a lot I couldn't and no doubt will pipe up that 
conditions were great, but as far as I am concerned they were yuk..

Had a bit of fun sending my power, sending 005 (TT5) seemed the optimum 
and I got a few 'fb QRP' responses, one chap even sent me 72. Looks 
like many in Europe have invented a new 51st state, KW...

I have been playing with N1MM recently. It has some advantages over SD, 
but never got its multiplier window configured to be that useful. It is 
clearly aimed at USA domestic contests and seperates the 
states/provinces into call areas, rather than a simple summary. I ended 
up turning it off as it took up far too much screen area. Maybe I 
missed the obvious, but this is certainly an area where SD excels.

So OK chaps, were conditions great and I need to work on my 
antennas?...

73 Dave G3YMC

http://www.davesergeant.com