[UK-CONTEST] WPX CW 2012 (M5E chez G0CKV)

[Olof Lundberg]

I heard quite a number of UK stations in the WPX contest and I worked a
handful for useful multipliers. Some of the UK stations had impressive qso
numbers and it would be interesting to hear about their experiences.  I am
only on the air for occasional HF contests so I can't really judge but I
believe condx were quite reasonable. This is what I filed on 3830:

M5E was on the air from the G0CKV home QTH in suburban London running a
single K3 and no frills except for WinTest and RBN. K3 and WinTest
performed flawlessly as usual and RBN makes contesting more fun for this
old-timer who always likes evolving technology. We don't want this hobby to
die and end up in a museum, do we?

The antenna farm here was miserable and in the G0CKV tradition erected in
the last minute field-day style for the weekend, more or less identical to
this: http://g0ckv.com/g0ckv_sac2011_antennafarm.jpg , a collapsing
inverted L snarled in the trees and shrubs for 160 and 80, a 40m inverted V
dipole with apex at 25ft and a Cushcraft trap dipole at 20ft for 20-15-10.

It is very difficult to work any low-elevation DX with these low antennas
that are well shielded by the surrounding vegetation and houses but condx
were not bad so I guess I have to be happy with what I worked. Apologies
for all the repeats required and thanks to the many DX ops who patiently
managed to pick out the tiny callsign and dig out the serial number from my
puny signals.

This was an almost 100% S&P effort. When I tried to run I was either
barking (whispering?) into an empty space or a big brute came and took my
frequency pretending that he didn't hear me. I never achieved any runs in
my few brief attempts but had have several fun S&P sessions going at 80-100
q/hr. I optimistically loaded the new beta firmware for the K3 that is
supposed to improve the K3's ability to pick out signals in pileups. Well,
with this setup I didn't have any pileups that would challenge the K3 but I
guess I was frequently part of the bottom of the pile at the other end.

With no towers or rotators or stacked yagis to maintain at this QTH I had a
few spare minutes available to consider strategy and decided to focus on
yield rather than 'dumb' rate and I think that strategy worked OK.

This was good fun with great operators generally - thanks for the QSOs and
your good ears and patience.

One lesson from this might be that you can have great fun and do kind of OK
even without a super-station in a super-location. It can be seriously fun
and exhilarating to operate from a big station but it is challenging and
satisfying in a different way to do OK as an under-dog.


 BAND   QSO DUP  PFX  POINTS   AVG
-----------------------------------
  160     2   0    0       3  1.50
   80   281   0   57     710  2.53
   40   613   4  355    1994  3.25
   20   486   1  301     992  2.04
   15   407   1  148     937  2.30
   10    39   0    7      73  1.87
-----------------------------------
TOTAL  1828   6  868    4709  2.58
===================================
      TOTAL SCORE : 4 087 412