Hi all,
Where to start?
The weekend wasn't looking good for me, contest-wise, as we had house-guests
for the weekend, and the mother-in-laws bathrrom was getting a make-over, so
I wasn't sure how much time I would get to play.
Friday evening was a late night, as you might expect with guests, so I
didn't get up as early as I would have liked.
7.40am here was light, and I checked 80m to start with. Not much there, but
I did manage P49X around 0752 (thanks for the new one Ed!) and I then went
to 40m. Got TI5N at 0759, which was amazing.
I then went to 20m which was buzzing well, and had a ball until it was time
to go shopping for tiles, mastic, and various other plumbing fittings. Then
it was time for the weekly shop, and although attendance isn't compulsory,
it is appreciated!
The rest of the day was spent grabbing bits of time in the shack, and I
ended up with 260 in the log by the time I needed my bed. That was less than
I had hoped, but I wasn't able to spend as much time in the chair as I
needed.
My first few hours were quite productive, with some nice rates of around
53 - 56 for an hour at a time, purely on S&P. But, as everything is a mult,
that isn't difficult.
I overslept on Sunday morning, and then had to read the RSGB news here at
0930, plus run a chat afterwards, so didn't start again until around 1030.
20m was the place to be, but there weren't too many new stations to work, so
rates suffered. 15m was open sporadically, but as mults only count once,
there wasn't much incentive to call CQ endlessly. I did enjoy working so
many W6/W7/W0's plus Bud VA7ST again.
The band was very full, with stations from 14050 all the way up to 14150,
which was great to see!
Late on Sunday afternoon, I decided to have a CQ on 40m, and had a great 2
hours there until someone spotted me at the lower edge of the band. This
totally ruined my rate, and I ended up with folk querying my call, asking if
I was running two stations on 40m, telling me that wasn't allowed etc etc. I
almost gave up then!
80m was very poor here, as it was quite noisy, and exchanges were hard work,
requiring many repeats.
And of course there was nothing on 10m, but that wasn't unexpected.
During my runs on 40m, I was called by HZ1PS. I wasn't sure about the call,
and I am still not sure, but the pile-up was quite large. I also got called
by YZ4SM, which would have been a mult for me! However, he called me, I sent
a report, and he didn't come back. I tried sending the report several times,
but after no reply, I went to CQ. Several came back, and so did YZ4SM. I
sent him the report, but he failed to come back once more. Oh well, I missed
that mult. Maybe he had problems his end, but it slowed me down a little.
I was also surprised to get some folk already worked joining in the pile-up
and trying to ride over other stations to get me, so I wonder if they read
the rules fully!
I wasn't expecting to beat last years score, but I beat the score by quite a
bit with less QSO's, so I ended up a happy man. I also have one new country
on 80m (P49X) and one new one on 40m, but I can't see what that might be as
yet.
Anyway, after all that, here is my claimed score..........
Q's Pt's P'fxs
80m: 33 136 27
40m: 183 772 109
20m: 302 725 228
15m: 15 32 13
10m: 0 0 0
Totals: 533 1665 377
Claimed score: 627705
(Last year was 543 Q's, 1649 points, 351 prefixes, for 578799 points)
73 all, and thanks for the fun, thanks for the genuine spots, and for the
contacts.
Phil GU0SUP
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