[UK-CONTEST] GM5X SO 15m unassisted

[Kerr, Prof. K.M.]

After my well publicised and analysed tower disaster and general antenna havoc after the storm a month ago, my CQWWSSB plans for another outing in SOAB were in tatters. The only antennas I had were my 15m and 10m yagis and the F12 C3. I felt I had done enough 10m SB with CQWWCW and ARRL 10m last year so decided that I would have another go at 15m SB. Last time I did this was in 1998!
All the solar number suggested that things would probably be down on last year, though my perspective from my 2011 SOAB effort as ZK2X was not much of a comparison. The general consensus on this reflector seems to be the predicted ‘pretty good but not as good as last year’......
I had literally 3 weekend days at home between the tower collapse and the contest. It took 2 days to dismantle the mess, and another day to reinstall the repaired tower section, new wire guys etc so installation of a new home-brewed 4el 15 yagi was a nocturnal affair – weekday nights by lamplight! I had no chance to operate before the contest but heard that conditions were excellent earlier last week.
Saturday was pretty good on 15m. Of the 15 hours I was QRV, 7 produced >200 QSOs each, three >190, best was a 253 hour, one of the highest I have ever managed from this QTH. JA was strong and there were loads of EU in the morning whilst NA opened early and stayed in pretty well with a long opening to W6/7/VE7 including many KL7 and several KH6. Steve G0AEV mentioned static rain. That was an issue here too, Saturday am, but it was not too bad and the low C3 seemed relatively immune. It was not even close to the 4el monobander at 24m on long hauls but kept me in the game. I had a sudden powercut mid afternoon Saturday for no apparent reason since the weather was relatively benign. This lost me 20 mins, my run frequency and my calm! I ended the day with over 2800 QSOs, about 100 DXCC but was missing a good few East and African zones.
Sunday started off very well too. The band opened even earlier for me – about 0545 but it took 30mins to be heard and over an hour to be runnable. But by 0700 I had a great run of loud JAs started. Admixed with EU and other nice stuff, this lasted a couple of hours but quickly thereafter the band shortened, the JAs and BYs all but disappeared and I felt things were a lot tougher than on Saturday. Subsequently the band was slow to open to NA but after around 1630 or so, things seemed to pick up again, were decent for a spell, but went off faster than on Saturday night. By 2200 the band was dead save for a few EU stations CQing to the death.  I also lost a good run spot with NA on Sunday afternoon when the top end of the band, where I had been forced into exile, was wiped out by s9+ modulated hash that seemed to be coming from out (above) the band, ?BC QRM, not sure – it lasted several hours.
I was very lucky with mults on Sunday. Each time I got QRMed from my run frequency or had to stop to pee I did a quick band sweep and usually found something.  Some of the announced operations that I never found, actually found me, for which I am grateful. I was gob-smacked to be called by Z81D! I missed zone 23. I also never worked GW, GI or GD and heard precious few Gs of any flavour.
Several have commented, yet again, on QRM and splatter. Even 15m was a nightmare, especially on Sunday. Most times, when I acquired a noisy neighbour, I asked kindly if they could move a bit and always, bar one, did they agree. For that, gentlemen, a big thanks. OK7O CQed in my face. I was asked to move once, by S50R. I moved. It seems that having a relatively clean signal is a disadvantage – not good. I wonder if the WW SDR recordings that are going to be checking what we said can also be used to address this issue?
I was surprised and pleased by the final result. At the start I never thought I’d make over 4k QSOs and get so close to Chris MI0LLL’s EU record. In retrospect, propagation on Saturday was pretty favourable.

Contest         : CQ World Wide DX Contest

Callsign        : GM5X

Mode            : PHONE

Category        : Single Operator (SO) Unassisted

Band(s)         : Single band (SB) 15 m

Class           : High Power (HP)

Zone/State/...  : 14

Locator         : IO87WJ

Operating time  : 31h22



 BAND   QSO  CQ DXC DUP  POINTS   AVG

--------------------------------------

   15      4404  39  142  158   10119    2.30

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

       TOTAL SCORE : 1 831 539



Dupes are not included in QSO counts neither avg calculations


Thanks to everyone for all the QSOs and great fun.
73 Keith GM4YXI






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