[UK-CONTEST] RSGB 21/28 Contest - 5B/G0TSM

[Darren Collins (G0TSM)]

5B/G0TSM  Located in Peyia, Cyprus.
Station was an FT2000, 400W, Create 318 tribander @25ft and a Yamaha 
CM-500 headset. Multi-op as I used the cluster to 'try' and find mults, 
although I didn't find/work a single station from it but was connected.

15M CW Qs - 55
15M CW Ms - 42

15M SSB Qs - 15
15M SSB Ms - 15

10M CW Qs - 70
10M CW Ms - 48

10M SSB Qs - 230
10M SSB Ms - 91

Total QSOs - 370
Total Ms - 196
Score - 217560

note: 47% of callers gave serial number 001

(Tnx GM3WOJ, G3PHO and M0TTG for 4 slots)

On Saturday I had a nice day on the beach playing with different 
antennas at the water's edge as I thought it might be fun to operate 
from there. But late afternoon I was bitten by a few big sand flies that 
drew a fair bit of blood so decided against that. But it was really 
amazing to look at a EU and NA pile on 12M using just a 1.2M long mobile 
antenna with EU pounding in at 9+30 to 9+40. Just 10 mins later the same 
pile up seen on a quad loop a few KM inland with 3deg rising ground was 
barely over S9, wow what a difference.

I had a few emails suggesting that mixed mode would be more productive, 
so I set up the station for SSB/CW and practised running small piles on 
Friday night and Saturday night to try and get back into the swing of it.

I started the contest on 10M as this was the place to be but immediately 
had trouble with a Eu pile who didnt want to know what UK only meant, or 
G stations only. This actually got quite silly through the day with 
non-G callers being politely refused but then they started changing 
their callsigns to made up G calls, like M9CO. 10M was definitely the 
bread and butter band with 15M signals on well down up to around 1300z, 
when I mean down I mean from 9+ on 10M to barely readable on 15M, 
including signals from the big guns. Right on cue I had a sunset peak on 
10M but 15M was still very hard going. I stayed on right until 1900z but 
my last QSO was at 1656z. In two hours I couldn't find any new stations 
on 15CW/SSB, even though 15M signals were up and the G*s that were on 
were very loud.

Getting the district code on SSB was a nightmare, in the end the best 
solution was for me to ask for the first 'two letters of your post code' 
and then explain about Glasgow, Birmingham, Sheffield etc. I actually 
recorded my request into the DVK which saved my voice. Fortunately only 
2 stations on CW asked what exchange I would like, compared with 100+ on 
SSB.

I was surprised that only a couple of guys asked for QSYs. I did ask for 
QSYs myself but found I couldn't copy the stations on 15M at all. I did 
get a couple of ZS stations call in on 10M who were looking for UK 
stations and said they couldnt hear any on 10 or 15.

Some BIG signals on 10M, including M3D**. Now, this chap was louder than 
all the big guns and was only using 10W and a vertical, so imagine if 
you added on an extra 20dB for a Yagi plus an amp. Hmmmm.

The only two stations I heard 'CQing for the UK' were YO3CZW on 
backscatter and RM5M, again on scatter, but at the end of the contest 
there seemed to be some reasonable numbers being sent from the UK.

Thanks for the support from the subscribers of this list who called in. 
And if you didn't pick up the mic or get on the key, why not? :-D

73 Darren G0TSM / M7X