[UK-CONTEST] GM5X CQWW CW

[Kerr, Prof. K.M.]

A bit late with this but may as well add my tuppence worth. I was away on business on Thursday/Friday prior to the contest, was somewhere over Iraq at 35000ft when the contest started and got home about 1000 on Saturday morning. Consequently, it was 1100 before I was on the air and was not really in the right frame of mind for a CW contest to be honest.
15m SB unassisted. My, how conditions were different from one month earlier! Saturday was a real struggle. It was pretty tough to get anything going at all. I presume I had missed whatever might have been on offer to the east by my late start, though I am guessing it was no great shakes earlier on either. I managed about 3 ESP strength JAs long path and one or two VKs but it was a toil and the UA9 and especially UA0 guys were few and far between. I never worked zone 19. The opening to the US was rubbish, and I finished Saturday with a miserable 700 QSOs.
Sunday was certainly better, eventually, though the band was slow to get going and I thought it was 1500 or so before it shook off a lot of its unenthusiastic feel. The only bright spot in the morning was a steady trickle of JAs long path, some quite loud but no volume. By late afternoon the US stations were a bit more numerous than Saturday but I rarely had what you would call a pileup. Throughout the contest I noticed that when I had a couple of callers, the guy who was not replied to first very frequently moved on. I guess a lot of S&P stations don't wait for GMs! I am sure I am not that slow to work folks.......
Both days saw loads of backscatter and multipath that others have commented upon.  The biggest problem I had was with Scandanavian/Baltic stations. Also, I worked only a few SPs - unbelievable since they are usually very numerous and most of them were a real struggle. I also failed to work several stations, from goodness knows where, since I simply could not read the multiplex/frame shifted calls and invitations to QRS fell on deaf ears.  I do not know if these effects can be 'one way'? But under such conditions, it seems to me a bit daft to call in at 40-50+ wpm to be honest!
Not signing for ages. Overall I'd agree with the view that it was a bit less prevalent this year. Not perfect but progress I guess.
Plenty of bad signals around on 15m. Clicks in abundance but also very wide signals. I have absolutely no doubt that this is largely deliberate. For me the worst I came across were ER4A and especially LZ9W. The latter I tried to tell about the problem I perceived - he opened up about 4KHz below me on Sunday afternoon and gradually it became impossible for me to work anything, even with him off the back of the antenna - the first time he ignored me and CQed in my face. The second time the reply was to the effect 'there is no problem with my signal'.
The band stayed open a little longer on Saturday and I managed to find and work a very weak KL7RA for a double mult. I searched long and hard for a KH6 but that never happened. Overall I probably did not spend enough time chasing mults so missed a lot of zones and easy countries. I think knowing that I was always off the pace with the late start probably affected my approach. Still, good fun and there is always next time.

GM5X 15m SOSB Unassisted
1849q  33z 114c    3719  2.01 = TOTAL SCORE : 546 693

73 Keith GM4YXI/GM5X

======================================








The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.