[UK-CONTEST] SSB FD - GW4TTA/P (Restricted)

[Stewart Rolfe]

We decided this year to be fairly serious about ssb fd and operated the whole 24 hours with 2 main operators, Steve GW0GEI and myself. We used the ancient club caravan which we towed to a site alongside the salt marshes on the east side of Red Wharf Bay on the island of Anglesey. We used my K3 with an inverted V doublet on the marsh about 200 feet in length and up at around 40 feet in the centre. We decided this wasn't a DX contest as such and weren't tempted to try our cheap'n nasty multi-band vertical instead, something that created a certain amount of discussion though.

Action was pretty pedestrian most of the time with no hectic run periods at all. 10m was open enough to keep us on our toes checking, and 40m and 80m were nice and quiet at this location. We were experimenting with using a separate monitor position on the 2nd receiver for spotting mults. Useful but did need close co-operation to prevent screwing up the run logging when the spotter stole the focus to enter a call into the VFO B window etc; I've no doubt the odd Q has been logged incorrectly due to this. The infinite choice of audio mixes in the K3 is great here and I programmed the most useful 3 into a single 'toggle' switch on the K3 so we could adjust what each was hearing in the phones at a single tap.

These 2 'know it all' operators didn't bother to call on the depth of yachting and marine interests in the club so didn't realise there was a particularly high tide at 3am on Sunday. At that time I opened the caravan door to commune with nature but hesitated when the ground seemed to be shimmering beneath me. This was due not to sleep deprivation but to being surrounded by a foot of sea water; fortunately the generators were on a grassy rise and safe but naturally I'd parked my car in the lowest place and I later discovered 2 inches of Irish Sea in the foot wells - I know what I'm doing for the next couple of days, not to mention fending off the jokes and jibes from fellow club members!

Again I wasn't sure about the relationship between the All Asia contest and FD. I tended to avoid the 'Only All-Asia' plea but did work several giving our agreed 'age' as the exchange. If working AA formed part of the tactics then the mult count could increase significantly but it just seems a bit messy and not in the spirit of FD. It did feel like we were in a domestic DL contest for much of the time though....

Provisional totals.....

 Band    QSOs    Pts  DXC
   3.5     156     738   15
     7     198     813   18
    14     249     954   35
    21      29     102   23
    28      13      42    8
 Total     645    2649   99
Score: 262,251

73,

Stewart, GW0ETF

(With thanks to MW0BER for mopping out my Fiesta on Sunday...!)