Well the conditions like other have said were pretty awful at the start and only marginally better towards the end. The Earth impact of a solar wind sream from a coronal hole doing the damage.
This is the first time I have done an assisted entry in this contest, but I felt obliged in order to secure the most points I could for the England Team!
10m suffered badly and I only managed 1 QSO with New Zealand from ZM1A who was a good signal just short of the end of the contest. However, no other ZL or VK were heard.
I was surprised that Don, 5X1DF had such trouble hearing, we eventually managed to hook up on a couple of bands.
The 80m morning “opening” was non-existant so far as I could tell with no VK/ZL worked and only ZL6HQ and VK6T at around sunset the evening before. Plenty of VK/ZL on 40 and 20m though. During the night I allowed myself a 20 minute snooze in the chair, only to find myself waking up after only 12 minutes!
It takes a lot of effort to set up for a contest, taking the Friday off work and driving 3.5 hours to the station then taking it all down, getting some sleep and driving home again! I am grateful to Andy G4PIQ and Martin M0BCT who were able to help get the antennas up on Friday afternoon. Without the travellers this contest would be a lot less interesting, so a big thanks to them for managing to be QRV.
I used DXLog and wasnt sure it was scoring correctly, but it seems to have done a good job and agrees with Win-Test on the final number.
BAND QSO DUP BONUS HQ POINTS AVG
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80 43 1 22 9 400 9.3
40 92 1 51 12 890 9.7
20 128 2 65 16 1245 9.7
15 49 0 37 9 455 9.3
10 23 0 18 4 200 8.7
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TOTAL 334 4 193 50 3190 9.5
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FINAL SCORE: 8 050
Station, SO2R, Elecraft K4 + K3 with linears, 7 ele 10m, 5 ele 15m, 4 ele 20m, Shorty 2 ele 40m, all at approx 80 ft plus 80m 4sq. & Skyhawk tribander.
Till the next one.
73