November 10, 2014

2014 CQ WW SSB Contest Notes: Tim, G4DPT


First the humorous bit: So there I am holding up the 40m vertical - a
bit wobbly - holding on to it for grim life and seem to be very unsteady on my feet, while Ian, G0VGS, guys it. He says "hold it steady Tim" I reply "it's my wellies - they're too tight for me - making me wobbly!!" Ian creased up and reckoned this worthy of his repertoire of funny stories. Found cause of problem when I took my wellies off, there inside soles was a neatly folded pair of thick over socks - no wonder I was wobbly!!!

On Friday afternoon Ian gave me a refresher on contest operation of the rigs and PC software, however found myself on my own at start of contest on Friday night and due to apprehension didn't get stuck in until 1/2 hour or so in - on Search and Pounce. Also forgot command to change op (Ctrl O), so my first session was logged as G1T instead of G4DPT, oops!! (Thanks to Nick for putting me right on Saturday night.)


40m was densely packed with stations so stayed on Search & Pounce - one exotic DX station in a permanent pile up alluded me for a while - although I had worked him easily as G4DPT 5 by 9 both ways just before contest. 40m stayed open until I went home at 04:45 (local) feeling slightly weary, but satisfied and I'd had fun; although my hourly contact rate was appalling compared with last year when I had a clear night run frequency on 80 metres with a pile up of Stateside stations calling me. Passed Hughie at crossroads near Oysterber Farm, on my way home, and managed to shout loud enough to stop him for a few words about the contest ....

Wasn't back again until 23:30 (local) Saturday night. The long distance DX on 40m was excellent, better than Friday night – including some rare prefixes - although quite a lot of stations were dupes by then. I regretted having to leave half way through Saturday night at about 03:30 (02:30 Zulu) when the band was still wide open, but was grateful for the extra hours sleep after previous night!!

An excellent contest result, despite initial lack of entries on the operating Spreadsheet before the start of the contest. My personal thanks to everyone involved especially Ian, G0VGS, without whose help, dedication and operating we would have had less fun and a much lower overall score!! Suggest we consider putting up 80m antenna next time.

73 to all,
Tim, G4DPT

Blog Entry by Nick 2E0TBT

Arriving on the Saturday 25th October the bands was in full swing, antenna's used was 40m, 20m, 15m &10m verticals,  equipment Elecraft K3, KPA-500 amplifier (400w), Heil Pro-Set Plus (HC5 insert), logging by N1MM. The day seemed to go quickly and by evening we had made a fair number of qso's into the log, by the time I left at 10pm that evening we had 550,000 in the log.. would we make the magical million?

Arriving Sunday the 40m vertical had been removed due to the fierce winds we encountered during the night so was best to remove the antenna, leaving us with 20m, 15M & 10m. For the most part of the day, 20m &10m was the busier bands with long periods of time on these bands, 15m was hit and miss. When we finished the contest roughly around 20:45pm that evening we was very impressed to break the "million" points and worked 113 DXCC over the weekend. 

G1T Operators during the weekend was 2E0TBT (myself), G0VGS (Ian), 2E0DTG (Dave), G4UME (Hugo), G4DPT (Tim), G1TLQ (Steve) and G0LWU (Andrew).


Nick Hall 2e0tbt

Sadly I was unable to make the event, my thanks to Tim and Nick for their thoughts on the contest.  I know all who attended had a good event which was relaxed with a gentle sprinkling of humour