2019-03-09 1000Z – 2019-03-09 2053Z     10:54  (654 mins)   (Start late)
2019-03-09 2330Z – 2019-03-10 0659Z     07:30  (450 mins)
2019-03-10 0805Z – 2019-03-10 0959Z     01:54  (114 mins)   (End early)

Total Time Off 20:18  (1218 mins)
Total Time On 03:42  (222 mins)

I managed 3.5 hrs or so in the contest last night and this morning on 40m and 80m. I had no antenna up for 20m, so had always planned just to get on and give away some points on the low bands. I didn’t have time to adjust my 80m antenna so it was 100w only on that band into a poor swr, but I used the solid state Gemini amp on 40m into a simple 40m wire vertical suspended in a tree with two elevated radials at 2m agl with 400w.

I worked some nice dx on 40m on short and long path, but struggled on 80m due to the badly tuned dipole at 30ft agl.

Strong gusting winds here yesterday, and lots of jobs to do at the new qth, meant the required antenna work to put in a serious entry this year was never going to happen. Chasing my tail yesterday with a 40m antenna fault but finally traced to a faulty lead.

I didn’t work a couple of the UK HQ stations on 80m as they were always below 3510, so despite other uk stations working them my reading of the rules was that I should not call them whilst they were below 3510. If that’s not the case then some clarification is required on the rule wording as uk to uk is not working dx unless there is to be a written exemption in order to work UK HQ stations?

Stats for the few hours I worked, mainly s and p but occasionally put out a few calls on 40m:

! Band     QSOs     Pts  Cty  Sec  Pt/Q
3.5             9     225    5    2  25.0
7            51    1035   31    5  20.3
Total          60    1260   36    7  21.0
Score: 1,260
1 Mult = 1.4 Q’s

I had a brief listen on 20m this morning and also 15/10m but was too busy doing other things to get back on 15/10m later in the morning to work anything.

By next year I may have some better antennas sorted as this is an enjoyable challenging contest.

73

Steve gw9J (gw0gei)