[UK-CONTEST] BERU 2012 VP9/G3PJT

[Bob G3PJT]

Contest         : RSGB Commonwealth Contest
Callsign        : VP9/G3PJT
Mode            : CW
Category        : Single Operator (SO)
Overlay         : ---
Band(s)         : All bands (AB)
Class           : Open
Zone/State/...  :
Locator         :
Operating time  : 18h52

  BAND   QSO DUP DXC  HQ  POINTS BONUS   AVG
--------------------------------------------
    80         71       0      14      1     355          480       11.76
    40      205        1      32      4    1025      1160        10.66
    20      212        0      31      3    1060       1160       10.47
    15      143        0      23      2     715          840        10.87
    10      129        1      14      1     645          440          8.41
--------------------------------------------
TOTAL   760       2    114     11    3800     4080        10.37
============================================
             TOTAL SCORE : 7 880


Set up. K3, SDR-IQ as panadaptor, A3S, 40m dipole, 80m G5RV (part time! 
) and inv L.  Logging on Win-Test.

Its 11am, Thursday 8th March, British Airways check in, 'We are sorry 
but your flight to Bermuda is cancelled', just like
that, no warning. 'We will put you up in the Premier Inn and you will be 
able to fly tomorrow'. Now I know what 'BA' really
stands for. I start to read the very fine print on the travel insurance.
However looking at the flight schedule it seems I might just make it if 
I can get to VP9GE's place in the late evening to set
up. I had planned to spend Friday afternoon setting up and running a few 
pile ups to get the feel of everything, still better
late, very late, than never. No chance to play around with the antennas 
though.
As it happens get set up late on Friday night and manage to grab a few 
hours of fitful sleep until the off at 0600 hrs local.
Get started on time but within a few minutes the laptop reboots, the 
first of several reboots - might have been caused by
interaction between the LPbridge virtual ports and the SDR-IQ - whatever 
- its irritating.
After a few hours the first unintended consequence of the loss of a day 
- nothing to eat and only black tea to drink so in a
relatively quiet period walk up the road to the shop and buy a few 
provisions.
Things rolled along quite nicely when suddenly the K3 goes very quiet 
and its the first of the two blackouts - no signals
audible over the whole HF spectrum from 3.5 to 28.5MHz - I grab 30 
minutes sleep.

As the day wears on the weather becomes windier until it builds up into 
a full scale gale as darkness falls - I always seem
to have a storm at sometime during BERU. LF bands get pretty noisy with 
leakage on the overhead power lines.
At about 9pm local Ed gives me a bang on the door to tell be the G5RV 
has blown down - that explains why I didn't seem to be getting out on 
80, in fact the inv L seems a lot better - so soldier on with that  but 
I couldnt make a Q with Nigel - I hear him but he can't hear me.
In the end I only have 60 Qs on 80 - about half what I would have expected.

The use of the SDR-IQ on the K3 if seems to be a good way of checking a 
complete band quickly - like 10m, if the combination
could be made to operate reliably. Might need  a faster laptop with more 
USB ports. After about the 6th reboot I try to
remove the SDR and LPBridge and run Win-Test directly from the laptop - 
but the ports were now messed up and Win-Test can't
access a port higher than 12 but the laptop thinks that 16 would be a 
good number to use! Keep calm and carry on!


By this time all the other big Open section signals have QSO numbers 
about 100 ahead of mine so must have missed an opening
somewhere.

80m pretty poor due to the antenna problems and the usual noise, much 
quieter at the start than at the end, no ZLs

40m bread and butter band, still missed ZLs and VKs

20m plenty of activity but very patchy, even without the blackouts. Also 
I had radar/ digital noise from 14010-14035 for
most of the time - this pushed me down the bottom end and away from the 
main centers of activity.
Interesting propagation on 20m at about 0230 - I can hear 9H3ET quite 
well whilst beaming over the Pacific - the only EU
station I can hear. Peter must have a pretty good site.

15m very watery signals from G

10m nice opening to G with big pile up, 1400 to 1530 which vanished as 
quickly as it appeared and surprisingly few VEs - I
expected that they would have been very strong later in the afternoon 
but no luck.

So not one of my better trips. 50 call areas worked for the Commonwealth 
Jubillee Award.

Many thanks to Ed, VP9GE, for his hospitality and the use of his 
antennas and Tarrafal  Apartment.