[UK-CONTEST] After the 6m CW contest

[Tim Hugill]

Well, that was good fun !
 
With all the welcome publicity given to this event, I wondered how we'd cope
with an influx of good CW operators from across the "Great 30MHz Divide".
As it was, we (a couple of VHF novice CW ops ) only caved in a couple of
times due to some slick exchanges which were just too good for us.
 
We learnt a lot of basics, including why we need a second good rig with good
filters when there's so much CW traffic around - we had two RXs on seperate
antennas.
But I don't understand the discussion about logging software.  For simple
logging in VHF contests, the Minos software does us very well, complimenting
our Pen & Paper log which our rig operator fills in.  Do so many stations
rely on keyboard-sending as well, which Minos doesn't support ?  We just
plugged away with a Bencher paddle, which I expect showed in the errors
towards the end.
 
As for the conditions, of course CW dealt better with the usual long slow
tropo QSB, with signals going in and out of the noise as per normal.
But we were distracted by the exciting possibility of Es, and had one
antenna pointing south most of the time, which helped net us some CNs & EAs.
As well as watching ON4KST.org, we also tried using a PC skimming 24kHz of
our RX bandwidth, which helped us spot when the band was opening.
 
All in all, an excellent contest, but please don't put it back-to-back with
the 4m Cumulative again - we're exhausted !
 
73
Tim G4FJK  from the Tiverton Club