CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: M3MCX
Operator(s): CALLUM
Station: M3MCX
Class: SOSB(A)/40 LP
QTH: Birmingham
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160:
80:
40: 161 6 41
20:
15:
10:
------------------------------
Total: 161 6 41 Total Score = 6,392
Club:
Comments:
License: 10 Watts
Shack: Yaesu FT902 and FC902 (ATU), borrowed (club) headphones, half size
G5RV at 20 feet.
Refreshments: Chocolate and large amounts of coffee!
At the last minute and in discussion with the QRP king, Darren (MW5HOC), I
decided to do low power, 40M "assisted" - mainly because there's never been an
Assisted entry before for this category from England, so I should enter the hall
of fame! I'm claiming 6392 points with 6 zones and 41 countries across 161 QSOs.
This was exceptionally hard, both on transmit and receive for my old radio, it's
any wonder I made any contacts at all. I felt for those stations that I
hoodwinked into believing I was from Uruguay by screaming "CHARLIE XRAY..
CHARLIE XRAY..". With a bit of luck, they'd pull me out. Often, when they
realised that 1) I was only a UK station (M3 Mike "CHARLIE XRAY") and 2) this
was going to take longer than they thought, they would bail out and ignore me,
calling CQ again. One kind Russian was honest enough and told me to come back in
half an hour. He'd already spent 2 minutes on me and was losing points by
hanging around. Those stations that kindly kept with me, often got my number
wrong, thinking I was an M5. "NEGATIVE - MIKE THREE.. - [ONE.. TWO.. THREE]!"
sometimes cured the problem - sometimes didn't! By the way, I worked the station
that asked me to call back in half an hour. One shout and he caught me fair and
square like I was running 1000 watts! Funny old world.
I worked just one Zone 5 (USA) on a split. Not having a dual VFO, the
arrangement took some time and frantic rig operation. Dial up the band and
listen to the US. Hit the memory button and tune back down to TX frequency. Hit
the button marked TX-RX-MEM to receive on memory and transmit on VFO. Manually
check ATU then start shouting! I couldn't re-tune my receive frequency without
dialing back up the band, selecting a station to receive, hit memory and shoot
back down again. I couldn't help thinking about the FT920 sitting there in the
club shack. Next year, I'll borrow it!
I did some research last week for contest logging software and tested out N1MM.
This took a little bit of learning but was worth it for the contest. I managed
to create an email window tucked into the top left of my monitor so I could chat
with Darren and we did some spotting for each other too, see:
- http://www.mccormick.uk.com/m3mcx/n1mm.gif for a screenshot.
The logging software graphically shows where each contact has been made on the
band and also automatically puts in the spots (hence the "Assisted" entry).
Stations already worked are shown in grey, local zones in Blue and DX in red. If
I had had an automatic radio, double clicking the spot would tune the radio to
the right frequency. As it is, as soon as the spot appeared, I would chose
either to tune straight to the frequency manually or ignore for the current time
(the old FT902 wasn't designed with a PC in mind!). When the screen became too
cluttered, I would just "remove all spots" and start again. Near the end of the
contest, most spots (Zone 14, 15, 16, 20 & 33) appeared in grey, showing me that
I had already worked them.
Next year, I should have my full licence for 100 watts and I?ll beg, borrow (or
steal!) a more modern rig, ideally with twin VFOs and put up a full size loop ?
and higher too!
Big thanks to Darren, Pete and Lee from my club, Wythall Radio Club, for all
their help and also to all those stations that were kind enough to answer my
calls.
Callum, M3MCX.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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