ARRL International DX CW Contest.
The ARRL International DX CW Contest. Took place ever the weekend of 20th - 21st February and I thought it might be a good idea to take advantage of this contest to get a few DX Long distance QSO's radio contacts in the log. I had no plains to spend hours in the contest I thought that I would just deep in and out as and when I was free to do so.
I was able to take advantage of band opening's on 15m, 20m, and my favourite band 40m. Radio propagation was good on 15m and 40m on Saturday morning 40m was open into the United States of America well after rise in the United Kingdom in fact up to 10 am local time.
RSGB IOTA Contest 27th July 2009
I had been looking forward to this year’s IOTA contest I took the Friday before the contest and Monday after the contest off work as leave this meant that I was able to complete any preparations regarding my station set up and lay out in plenty of time before the contest started on the Saturday. During the week before the contest I had spent some time listening on the bands for any IOTA activity as in the past I had noticed that some resident amateurs who live on islands seem to operate during this time also as the week progress’s many of the club or contest groups who have gone to activate an island will have a station up and running
I first entered IOTA in 2006. I have take part each year since My listing on the RSGB IOTA contest page are:
2006 Place 29th IOTA FIXED 12H LP. Contacts 123 Mults 40 Final score 36,840.
2007 Place 16th IOTA FIXED 12H LP. Contacts 150 Mults 57 Final score 68,058.
2008 Place 19th IOTA FIXED 12H LP. Contacts 138 Multis 54 Final score 60,588.
This year might read:
2009 Place .... IOTA FIXED 12 LP. Contacts 205 Mults 63 Final Score 93,177
Soap box
My main objective was to improve on the previous years score, using it
to encourage me to sit in the shack for the whole 12 hours.
The first couple of hours was hard going due to the large pileups and
people running QRO, this made SP hard going but as the hours passed
the pile ups reduced and contacts became easier.
Pleased to see good openings on 15m and 10m and only wish that I would
put up a better antenna for 80m so that I can take advantage of making
more QSOs on that band, over all the best band was 40m.
I was surprised to discover while operating the number of uk stations
which did not know there IOTA number let alone think they lived on an
island.
Look forward to next years contest.
Equipment: Yaesu FT-950, 80m Windom 15m Dipole and Win-Test.
CQ WW CW Contest 2008
This year I was really keen to have a fun bash in this years CQ WW DX CW contest in the section single operator low power unassisted search and pounce my station set up for the contest was tx/rx FT-950 antenna windom CS80 special as an inverted vee.
I was able to work the following zones:
5,8,10,14,15,16,20,33.
On The saturday I Started on 40m working my way up the band trying to work as many stations as I could the pile up's were large and I thought it would be unwise to stay to long so limited my time calling. This was to pay off as I soon found stations not to far way from that I could easily work thus making q's and picking up points. Once at the top of the cw part of the band I would start all over again. I had hoped to take advantage of the band opening on 10m however the band never opened. I also found 15m poor on the Saturday but was able to work some stations on 15m on the Sunday. The most produtive bands for me were 40m and 20m.
On Sunday just as we were going into the gray line uk tea time I noticed that the skip had changed I could still hear a few Europeans however the states was 599+ I tuned to the high end of the band and as I tuned down the band I gave a call to each station that I heard in this way I worked a run of the following 17 stations N9CK, WQ2N, K1BV, K8DD, VE3JU, N0JJ, K9MA, K1EO, K1ZZ, W9RE,K5ZD, K3CR,KQ2M, K3ZO, K2LE, K3LR, K1KI.
Band Summary
BAND QSO CQ DXC DUP POINTS AVG -------------------------------------- 160 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 80 13 2 8 0 11 0.85 40 93 8 38 6 115 1.24 20 133 9 28 0 269 2.02 15 5 2 2 0 7 1.40 10 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 -------------------------------------- TOTAL 244 21 76 6 402 1.65 ------------------------------------- TOTAL SCORE : 38 994
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