[UK-CONTEST] CQWW SSB - SOSB (10m) HP Unassisted - M6T

[Steve Reed]

CQWW SSB - SOSB (10m) HP Unassisted - G0AEV @ M6T
 
Rather a long preamble to this years' contest.  For personal reasons I've
not been able to do any contesting in 2012 (apart from giving GR2HQ a point
in the IARU contest) but I really didn't want to miss CQWW and break a
sequence of 27 consecutive entries on 10m.  My chances of doing the contest
reduced considerably after my shack was broken into and the contents trashed
- luckily my FT1000 survived despite it being thrown out of a window and
left in the rain.  So I was fortunate to say the least to be invited to use
the G0KPW (M6T) station in Suffolk.

G0KPW is being re-configured with a new shack that is almost finished but
lacking radio infrastructure.  Quite a bit of work was needed in the
weekends before the contest to move and set up a tower (thanks to Chris
GM3WOJ for spending time on his way to the RSGB Convention to work on this),
fit antennas, feeders, etc., and to build the station itself in an otherwise
empty room.  (The empty room acted as an echo chamber: I felt obliged to
pass off comments made during the contest about the echo on my audio as a
propagation effect!)

By the evening of the Friday before the contest I had a single 5 element
monobander at 100' but was struggling to get a second antenna system going
(other than a fall-back ground-mounted half-wave).  I was intending to use a
tribander which was parked on a tower 100m away but I still hadn't got the
feeder or rotator cable sorted when Andy G4PIQ arrived to help out - thanks
Andy!  We managed the cabling and to fix a few remaining problems (and to
hear our own echoes on 10m - definitely backscatter) but were unable to
raise the tower in time, which left me with a working second antenna but at
25'.  Even so, this 2nd antenna proved later to be a life-saver.

So to the contest.  First signal heard on Saturday was from zone 18 nice and
early at 0504 then nothing much more until 0550 when the band came properly
alive to zones 20 and 21.  First long haul QSO was to BY5CD shortly after 6
and thereafter the normal flow of things until 21.30 when the band closed to
PY.  A similar story on Sunday starting with VK6 and ending up with PY but
the evening opening extended until midnight.  Last QSO was PY3DX at 2340
with ZL heard on the long path at around the same time - the first time I've
heard this path open during the current solar cycle.  And speaking of long
path, there were exceptionally good long path signals from South America at
around 0600 on Sunday, though I heard nothing that I hadn't already worked
the day before.  There were typical sporadic E openings morning and evening
both days with the Sunday evening opening between 19 and 23z netting 100
European Qs and a multiplier - the low antenna doing the work here.
Backscatter was the mainstay for nearer-Europe at other times, of course.

Total QSOs		2206
Africa			2.1%
Asia			10.2%
Europe			36.0%
Oceania		0.7%
North America	44.7%
South America	6.2%

Countries 		129
Africa			14%
Asia			18%
Europe			38%
Oceania		5%
North America	14%
South America	11%

Zones 			38
Claimed score	830658

I am not sure if I should be pleased with this years effort or disappointed.
The multiplier total really wasn't up to expectations and in trying to catch
up on the mult target my run rate suffered and I think I fell short on both
mults and QSOs.  Conditions were not quite as good as last year but it
should have been possible to repeat the 40 zone clean sweep.  I probably
wasted too much time looking for missing zones 1 and 31, and I'm still
annoyed not to have found the relatively easy long path to KH6.  Perhaps the
exceptionally high level of activity, especially during the Europe to N
America openings, made finding multipliers harder than usual?  Unfortunately
you can't rely on the multipliers calling you - though one can't complain
when the likes of double mult Z81D calls in!

If I am looking for excuses for poor performance (and I suppose I am) I do
have a strong candidate in the horrendous rain static I suffered on the main
antenna which rendered it useless every time one of the wintry showers
(rain, sleet and hail) passed over on Saturday.  This was sufficiently
annoying that I logged the times when I could hear nothing through the S9
plus noise - 3 hours in total.  Having said that, I could still run after a
fashion using the low-level tribander and work DX, so I doubt my score
suffered too much.  I did loose one mult - AP2IA - which was the only
multiplier that I recall was heard but not worked.  And I was sure I had
worked UI2K but mysteriously the call is not in the log...

All in all an excellent weekend.  Special thanks to Bob G4BAH for allowing
me the use of his station, and thanks also to Andrew G4ADM for help in
clearing up on the Monday after.

Steve, G0AEV