IOTA Contest - 2022
Call: MD7C
Operator(s): M5RIC
Station: MD7C
Class: SO24SSB HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band CW Qs CW Mults Ph Qs Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
80: 216 34
40: 497 51
20: 612 62
15: 391 39
10: 236 21
----------------------------------------
Total: 0 0 1952 207 Total Score = 3,057,390
Club: Worldwide Young Contesters
Comments:
One of my favourite contests of the year and it was good to see the list on NG3K
growing in the weeks leading to the contest. Plenty of people and groups are now
travelling again which is great to see post covid.
In addition to the antennas already set-up I decided this year to add phased
switchable 1/4 verticals on 40m, this allowing 2 directions to be used with the
beam proving very useful when I wanted to work something in the opposite
direction of the beam. It took about half a day to build and set these up. I was
all set by Friday lunchtime
The contest started great with a strong 200 hour on 20m then I split time
checking 15m and 10m to see if they would be productive but I couldn't get
anything going so usually went back to 20m. There was a good opening to Asia in
the first few hours with a nice amount of JA and YB in the log for their mults.
Going to 40m early was a good choice as had a nice run to the UK (all 15 points)
and a mixture of EU in to the early evening.
The evening was a mix of 20-40-80 but I was waiting for the opening to the USA
and VE in the early hours on 20M, this was the same last year and was very
productive. This produced a nice run with new mults including a few Caribbean
islands which called like 9Y, C6, HI and the beacon from Steve PJ4DX. The
biggest surprise was working 2 VK’s long path but with huge signals about 3am
in the middle of a NA run.
The very early hours slowed as usual and I just moved around to try and mop up
everything I could hear. Each year I tell myself I need to do more multing and
think it paid off but still seeing scores now other people found more mults.
Usually Sunday morning around 8/9am is productive as a new set of ops tend to
come on but this didn’t happen as expected meaning the totals were lacking
going in to the last few hours. Listening to other EU stations working a good
rate on 15 and 10 when I can’t hear anything was frustrating.
I needed to work more on 15M so pushed on when the rate wasn’t great but think
the propagation gods finally listening and I filled the log with many needed
mults and better qso total.
The opening on 10M finally happened about 11am where I put just over 200 qso’s
in the log leading up to the end of the contest where I stayed on 1 frequency
and worked down to no callers eventually, adding a much needed volume of mults
too. Was great to get a good total on here after not hearing much happening
apart from those in the eastern part of EU and 5B4.
This year was made more fun with an online scoreboard competition between myself
and 9A6A, we spoke just before the contest and found we were doing the same. I
was ahead due to a larger number of qso’s but lost that lead on Sunday morning
as when I tuned around he was running on 15 and 10 what I couldn’t hear. I
closed his lead by about 400k before the end. Was great to see the score jump
when logging a new mult.
For those not sold on online scoring just try it, it really does push you harder
when the scores are close.
All equipment and antennas worked flawlessly, am liking the flex more and more
as I use it. Combining the equipment from 4O3A and Flex it creates a great
integration and am now moving away from physical boxes for switching. Everything
is now done on the pc screen so I just click to change antennas for the stack
matches or the direction of the verticals, meaning my hands just move between
keyboard and mouse the whole time.
Worked a lot of UK stations, many on all 5 bands, was nice have people call in
and say hello too.
Thanks to all that called and travel for this to activate islands.
73
Rich
M5RIC / MD7C
Equipment.
Flex 6600M + Amp
Optibeam 11-3
AD-2334
Phased 40m verticals
80m dipole
DX Log
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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