Hello There,
Here is my story of the 1997 CQWW 160 CW contest:-
Call: GW4VEQ
Section: Single Operator, High Power.
QSO's: 1107
Score: 832,405
States/Provinces: 49
DXCC: 71
Dupes: NIL
I really wanted to do a serious single OP effort in this contest, having
never before done a serious effort in a full 48hr CW contest, probably
due to the fact that my morse code has never been up to scrach! In the
past couple of years, I have become a bit of a top-band addict, mainly
due to the coaching and encouragement from Neil Smith, G4DBN, who has
always been there to share new ideas about aerial farming, and elusive
DX in silent hours (Neil is a senior member of the Insomniac's
International club - which I have found helps a lot if you want to
catch some rare new countries on topband!).
Having previously thrown up an Inverted L aerial for the ARRL 160m
contest in December 96, I decided to re-engineer the temporary twisted
together mass of radial wires at it's base. This amounted to about two
days on my knees in the aerial field doing the following:-
1. Untangling the previously installed twist-fix radial wires (about 16
of them) from the 3/4 inch square copper pipe common attachment point,
and chopping approx. 6 inches of wire to reveal clean and untarnished
copper. I then crimped and soldered a circular lugg to each wire, and
after drilling a pilot hole in the common radial attachment point, I
attached the lugg with a short self-tapping screw.
2. I then went out and bought 700m (i.e. 7 coils) of 1.5mm coated wire,
and gathered EVERY other piece of old aerial wire to hand, and proceeded
to lay another 34 lengths of radial wires, ranging from 90ft to 135ft in
length. Again, I terminated each radial wire with a soldered lug, and
attached them with self-tapping screws. Laying the new wire was a
dream, but soldering the joints in the old bits "in the field" was a
real pain, especially due to the fact that I had to take shelter just to
light my gas soldering iron (this ususally took about 5 attempts!).
BY the way, you will appreciate that to lay 700m of wire, you have to
walk at least 1.4km......probably much more, and those that know me will
appreciate that I'm not aerodynamically shaped for walking
long-distances! (read...HEAVY!)
3. When I unscrewed my quarter inch bolt from the threaded hole in the
70ft vertical half of the Inverted L (which was installed single
handedly), a JET of water shot out horizontally for about 10ft!
The 2 inch aluminium mast had filled with water, and this resulted in
MUCH corrosion of the URM67 coax's center connection. The joint was
re-done, and I drilled a drain hole approx. two inches below the point
at which the center conductor attaches to the mast....lesson learnt!
Unlike ARRL 160, I didn't get a chance to set up CT, and my shack until
about a couple of hours before the contest. The final set-up couldn't be
completed, as Steve, GW0GEI had offered to loan his TS850s & a TL922.
Steve arrived about an hour before the contest start, and the equipment
was put in place, and Steve took my radio to operate at his qth.
It always amazes me, but for some very strange reason, I always fail to
put the time into getting the shack end ready in good time. I promise
myself to allow ample time to play around and practice with CT, set up
the contest files, test them out, and try the morse keyer, and set the
PC keying lead and memories up, and mark the keyboard with relevant
commands. This situation NEVER seems to happen as planned, and there is
a lesson to be learnt here!
The main technical problem this time was that my Icom IC736 has two
morse key inputs, one for a manual cw key (which is fine for the PC
keying lead), and the other for an electronic key. But the ts850s only
has one keying input. After a few goes with the soldering iron, I
achieved the desired effect (i.e. using a PC keying lead, and having an
electronic key in parallel), but it's NOT much fun having to fiddle with
a soldering iron 5 minutes before the start of a major 48hr contest,
mind you it does get your adrennalin going somewhat!
Then came the start, and off I went, but only working a handful of
stations in the first 5 mins, the EU qrm was absolutely horrendous, it
seemed like everyone had the same idea of reserving 1830 for a run
frequency. The qso rate then increased steadily, and after 1.25 hours
when I was getting into a nice rhythym, for some unexplainable reason, I
began to wonder about the Licence Notice of Variation for the special
contest call....GW7J. These one letter calls are special contest calls
that the RSGB HF Contest committee have negotiated on our behalf. The
GW6J call (for 1996) had been used several times in for several
successful entires in International radio contests. The contest was
immediately halted, and the records checked, and unlike 1996, no NOV
could be found. An emergency call was made to the Chairman of the HF
Contest Committee, and it was confirmed that either a serious
administrative error had occured at RSGB, or the UK post office had
failed to deliver our application for continuance of our previous
special call, which was sent several months earlier (sorry for
disturbing you so late Chris G3SJJ!).
It's difficult to explain how frustrated and dissapointed I felt at this
time, and whatever the reason for the special call NOV not coming
through as planned, there was no other alternative but to re-start using
my own call! I was now approx. over 1.5 hrs into the event, and had
probably missed the peak qso/min rate, but I struggled on, and managed
to find a slot near 1830khz again.
Nine out of the first 10 qso's were new mults, including TF3DX & EA8EA,
first qso in the log was OT7T (ON4UN) who was L O U D !
VE1PZ & VE1ZZ were the first NA qso's, and PY0, followed by 8P9.
N7JW came booming through a good 2.5 hrs before my sunrise.
Conditions the first night were quite poor, and only a smuttering of
North Americans were worked, and at 553 qso's at just after 08:00z
I went qrt, and after some breakfast, went straight for a sleep.
I awoke at 15:00z, and had the first qso of the second day at 15:07z,
and I continued to work a steady run of EU's, with J45T (SV5) at 16:45.
I heard the XV & KC6, but everyone kept calling ALL the time, and I just
couldn't break the pileup (one of the dissadvantages of being in Western
Europe!). Strangely, I didn't hear VK0IR or Marc, 9X4WW, I wonder if
anyone else worked them except for ON4UN (OT7T)?.
First 10 pointer on the second night came with UA0WZ at 18:42, with
quite few other UA9/0 later. Qso rate tapered out to about 1/minute,
first NA qso of the 2nd night came at 22:16 - VA2AM. In the next hour, I
worked quite a few NA's, and was called by VQ9SS at 23:55, and 4X4NJ who
was just a bit louder than the A71 & 9K2MU. I took a look around the
band at 03:30, and netted KP4 & PJ9. ZF2QM wasn't as strong as V47KP,
but he had a good receive. V47KP took some time to work, despite being a
solid 20db over 9. From 03:45 till 08:35z, I had an excellent run to
North America, and I netted many new states. AA0RS was loud as usual,
K7RAT gave me Oregon, K6SE was first from California. WC7M gave me
Wyoming. I broke off at 09:40z to fetch the local RAYNET Emegency
Communciation Volunteers caravan for a local exercise, and returned
home briefly to recover some bits, and had a quick listen to the band
(optimistic eh!). I couldn't believe my ears, there was N5JA in Texas,
who I hadn't worked, but I did then! I took another listen later when
I got back, and heard W3LPL at 10:43z at 429, and then when all other
North American's had faded out, K8CC from Michigan was 339 at 11:02z
on 1838.2, a total of 3.5 hours after my local sunrise! (amazing stuff).
I started the last leg of the contest at 14:00z, and things were quite
slow, but the last hour was quite productive, and I made 30 EU qso's.
Steve returned to collect his rig/amp just after 16:00z, and I really
felt "on-top-of-the-world", and not at all tired. It's strange, but I've
heard of folk having a ringing in their ears after a 48hr contest (I
slept a bit of course), but I never felt better, and I didn't go to
sleep until my normal 00:00hrs, and had no roblem the next day in
getting up for work (I must have a really serious case of Topbanditis!).
I learnt quite a few lessons in this event, here is a brief summary:-
1. Some stations will do anything to steal your frequency, and I found
myself having to call cq through a wall of qrm from another EU signal
also calling CQ. I would not work anyone for minutes at a time, or I
would end up trying to copy a call with two or three others calling CQ
while someone came back to me. This was enough to drive you potty at
times, and really tested your concentration, and staying power!
2. I found it easier to call offending stations giving co-channel qrm,
and send "XY9XYZ PSE QSY, QSY tnx OM BK". Some qsy'd, but a lot just
stayed to have a battle for a bit, but they soon got the message after a
few minutes! (thought this was a gentleman's band?). Having said this,
there was one station I had absolutely NO problem with when requested to
qsy, and that was OT7T (ON4UN), tnx for co-operation John.
3. Another thing I found happening quite often was I would be called by
someone, and after sending a report, I would find them calling CQ TEST
on my frequency, and not replying to me. If you didn't watch out, and
continue, they would have attracted a response from elsewhere, and
while I wondered what was going on & hesitatated, the frequency would
be theirs!
4. It's true what they say about the body slowing right down, and body
temperature dropping at about between 04:00 & 05:00. I had to wear two
jumpers, and turned the heating fully on, and ALL the lighting I could
manage in order to stay alert!
5. I didn't drink coffee for a few days before the contest, but when my
low period came about on the second day (04-05z), I took a few cups, and
perked up quite a bit.....the advice from the contest reflector worked!
6. I found the "qso b4" feature in CT really useful when working dupes,
hence my ZERO dupe total!
Here is a breakdown of my qso's per continent:-
North America 255 23.0
South America 4 0.4
Europe 812 73.4
Asia 31 2.8
Africa 4 0.4
Oceania 1 0.1
All in all, I had a great time, and considering it's my first time in
this event, wielding a new antenna configuration, I'm well pleased with
the result, and would like to thank everyone for calling me, new friends
and old, and to Steve, GW0GEI who broke up his station to loan me his
radio and amp.
73 all de T O N Y .. GW4VEQ
P.S. CU ALL NEXT YEAR!
--
Tony Wyn Jones
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