Record book rewritten!

Objective achieved!

The title comes north!

Another New Year, another 80m IRTS contest. After losing both the contest and the high QSO total last year by a whisker, I was determined not to make the same mistake this time. To that end, I ‘gently persuaded’ GI3PDN to let me run his amplifier. We couldn’t get it going on both CW and SSB without undue hassle, so I decided to run it on SSB and assumed 100 Watts would be plenty on CW.

This contest attracts people who never go near contests otherwise, and who often just want to bring in the New Year with their mates on the air, which is part of its charm. Obviously, I take a slightly more competitive approach!!!

Enormous fun as always, and as always I cannot thank Ray and Margaret enough for hospitality beyond the call of any duty.

Final score: 177 QSOs, including 2 logged dupes for 175 real contacts, 30 Counties, final claimed score of 13,440 A massive 70% increase in total QSOs this year, but the score increase is more modest, at just shy of 50%

SSB QSOs: IR 85 (+18) DX 71 (+51)
CW QSOs: IR 6 (-4) DX 13 (+6)

Irish CW QSOs actually down this year, of which more later.

Half hour rates of 55/24/19/28/23/26

( more below the jump )

What I got up to last weekend... for the ham radio uninitiated, the 2730 "QSOs" are the number of individual contacts I made. Should be enough for the top three in Europe in my category, maybe even to win it.

Call: G6PZ
Operator(s): G0RTN
Station: G6PZ

Class: SO(A)AB HP
QTH: Nr Bristol
Operating Time (hrs): 36

Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 36
80: 325
40: 378
20: 1231
15: 578
10: 182
------------
Total: 2730 Prefixes = 853 Total Score = 5,033,994

Club: Worldwide Young Contesters

Comments:

I'll do a more sensible write up when I get some sleep.

Paul only decided he was able to do the contest from G6PZ on Friday and was looking for operators. I decided operating from G6PZ would be more fun than just playing from home with 100 Watts and a high doublet. About 30 minutes before the contest started, I 'persuaded' Paul that 2 of us wouldn't be competitive as a multi-single especially as he had family commitments. Decided to go assisted because its the right level for dorks like me. When you can't get a run going, just point and click easy cluster spots, saves the time and effort needed for real S&P.

Single Op in this contest is easy - with the 36 hour limit there's plenty of time to sleep. G6PZ is in the middle of an antenna upgrade. The new 4 over 4 SteppIR stack ROCKS on the high bands. I always felt loud. Every pileup was easy to break. Whether picking up Sporadic E QSOs from other parts of Europe or running into the states, it seemed only necessary to send your callsign a few times for a pileup to emerge. Of course, as an ordinary G station, no-one sticks around if they don't work you quickly! Managed to work both Japan and California on 15, which I did not expect with a SFI of 68 and a woeful A index.

On 20, the stack kicked serious ass into the Western USA in our late evening. In fact, I didn't even realise how poor conditions were until I did a SH/WWV on Sunday evening.

The downside was that we are currently limited to a sloper on 40. It worked, but not the way the old 402CD did or the upcoming 3 element MonstIR will. 80 was really tough with the summer QRN. Heard a lot of US stations calling me that I just couldn't pull through the noise. Sorry.

PS - where are all the Japanese stations these days. I know conditions were crap but I only worked 10 of them. Come back please JA-hams, we love you and we always did.

Contesting is supposed to be fun. This was lots of fun. Thanks to everyone who called in for making it that way.

Five days late but there we are... conditions have improved greatly in the last 24 hours and I was working stations in Alaska and Hawai'i last night and this morning - dead the wrong side of the pole from here.

CQWW WPX Contest, SSB

Call: G0RTN
Operator(s): G0RTN
Station: G0RTN

Class: SO(A)AB LP
QTH: London
Operating Time (hrs): 10.5

Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 61
40: 37
20: 106
15: 56
10: 1
------------
Total: 262 Prefixes = 208 Total Score = 130,000

Club: Worldwide Young Contesters

Comments:

Conditions stank so I was very glad that I was only playing around with my new
antenna (wonda-doublet at 15m agl). It works fine. ZM3WW (New Zealand), JH4UYB (Japan) and VR2C (Hong Kong) through the 40m wall here in QRM Alley were the high points (with 100 Watts), and 4D9RG (Philippines) on 20 with a booming signal was also a nice catch.

Conditions seemed to pick up on Sunday evening, but I had to QRT at 1900Z due
to a major work meeting on Monday that I needed to be fresh for.

A big package with two 18m Spiderpoles arrived from Germany this afternoon.

The 100m drum of 450 Ohmm ladder line arrived a few days ago.

The 1.5 kW balanced ATU is on the way from Martin Lynch's emporium. The 1.5 kW amplifier was loaned to me the other night. Not, you understand, that I have the slightest intention of driving it above the UK legal limit of 400 Watts.

The house at the top of the steepest street in Greater London was obtained for a tidy monthly sum a few months ago now.

It's time to stop using the ground mounted R7 I've been stuck with for the past few months and get up a real aerial.

And win AFS CW this Sunday both individually and for the Three As as a team. And maybe even AFS SSB the weekend after. Although that might be pushing it a wee bit...

From spaceweather.com:

Solar activity doesn't get much lower than it is today: There are no sunspots, no coronal holes and no solar wind streams heading toward Earth. Furthermore, the sun's x-ray glow is at its dimmest. It's just a quiet day on the sun.

It's always darkest just before the dawn - let's hope this heralds the impending start of Cycle 24.

I had to work on Saturday so only made it to this year's RSGB HF Convention at teatime on Saturday, and I also hadn't booked which meant a last minute dash to get a dinner ticket and somewhere to sleep for the night. I'll learn one of these days. Honest.

Snaps of the weekend are available at G3TXF's site and Martin Lynch's webshots page. I am not in any of the shots, possibly because I didn't go to any lectures but spent the entire time in the bar chatting to people I don't usually get to meet in person, except for an hour operating on 20 metres with the special MB2HFC callsign.

It was great crack and I managed to both be the last person out of the bar (at about 4 - a few seconds behind G4IRN and N7NG). I also managed to re-enact the great uk-contest reflector BERU argument with Chris G3SJJ after about 8 pints, which was cool.

Brag points (chest swilling with pride):

• Got my plaque for 1st place UK Low Power in CQWWCW last year
  
• Came second out of an entire room at the DX Dinner quiz. It finished with a head to head series between K9AJ and I. I lost because I didn't know which CQ Zone the Colombian owned Carribbean island of San Andres was in - I guessed 8 but it's in 7. Mike did know that Kure Atoll was in Zone 31, but I would have done too. Curses!
  
• Was introduced by G3SXW (CQ Contest Hall of Fame member) to N7NG (CQ DX Hall of Fame member) as a 'shit-hot operator'. I must be doing something right.
  

I think I also might have won the 'Drank All Bottles' award but there were a few contenders for that one.

A really cool recording made by Fabian, DJ1YFK during July's VHF/UHF contest. This is what G5LK/P (operated by me from near Ipswich) sounded like with Fabian (who was operating DM7A just south of Dresden on the Czech border). The distance was 822km or about 513 miles. The frequency was 1296 MHz, or not too different from what mobile phones use. Ever had your mobile phone log into a cell in Dresden while you were in Ipswich?

So much for those who think the microwave bands are for short range stuff only. The same evening, one of our competitors made what I think is the first ever contact between England and the tiny Russian enclave of Kalinigrad, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, on the same band, at a distance of close to 1300km or 800 miles. Unfortunately, we didn't hear RK2FWA so missed our chance to make history...

...oh, and of course, all these ultra-long distance contacts are made using morse code. What else?

Belgium's UBA has its results here. Your scribe operated casually for about 6 hours and came 61st World, 27th European Union and 3rd in England in this very European Union focused contest.

The final standings for the RSGB's 80 metre club contest are also out. These are a series of 90 minute weekday evening sprints, 6 each on data, SSB and CW, held in the first half of each year, basically for UK entrants, but we always get good support from friends in the near Continent as well. Three As come 8th, not bad given our limited membership in what is an unlimited entry contest.

Congratulations to De Montfort University for an unsurprising win, and particular congratulations to Grimsby for running them so close - an impressive result for an 'ordinary' club.

After last week's report of a mini sunspot with reversed polarisation in late-July, spaceweather.com reports on another - and this one's a biggie!

BACKWARD SUNSPOT: Evidence continues to mount that the next solar cycle (Solar Cycle 24) is beginning. For the second time in a month, a backward sunspot has appeared. The first backward spot, sighted on July 31st, was tiny and fleeting. The latest, however, is big and sturdy, bipolar sunspot 905:

A SOHO magnetogram shows the magnetic poles of sunspot 905.

"Backward" means magnetically backward. Compared to how sunspots have been during the past 11-year solar cycle, the north and south magnetic poles of sunspot 905 are reversed. This is what happens when one solar cycle gives way to another--sunspots reverse polarity.

The onset of Solar Cycle 24 is big news, because the cycle is expected to be intense, but don't expect any big storms right away. Solar cycles take years to ramp up to full power. The next Solar Max is expected in 2010.

.

I don't entirely agree with spaceweather.com here. While the next maximum won't be here until 2010 or 2011, the upswing of the cycle is usually much, much, quicker than the downswing. Conditions should have noticeably improved by next autumn, and sprig equinox 2008 might be early enough to have flashes of 10 metres at its brilliant best. On the downside - make all the hay you can on 80 and 160 this winter - we won't see conditions like the current ones for another decade. Working 3 ZLs (New Zealand) and a VK (Australia) on 80, which I've done this year, was something I thought I'd never achieve.

And this minimum hasn't been too bad, at least compared with the mid-90s minimum when even 20 was weak on the northerly paths from the 55 degree mark for some months.

On Inis Oirr with the South Dublin and City of Belfast radio clubs on the Aran Islands a few weeks ago for this years IOTA Contest.

God, it was windy out there.

Even better news - although the official results are still only available to subscribers, it seems I have come 1st in the UK in the low power section of the CQ World Wide CW contest, the biggest and best ham radio contest of the year. And even among the high power entries, only G3TXF beat me.

Woooooooohooooo!!! Not sure where I've come in Europe, although unfortunately I don't think I've made the top 10 - I'd guess about 13th-15th judging from the 3830 posts last year. Which isn't bad given that I only had a vertical for the high bands.

This is the first time I have ever won anything of significance in contesting. My error rate of only 1.1% was very pleasing as well.

Along with the certificate from the contest organisers, I also get a nice plaque from the Chiltern DX club.

Thanks to G3LET for letting me squat when my antennas were down here. His 80 metre long wire rocks - I was running into the American Midwest for long periods, which is not the norm on 80.

I'm on fire!

Three As Contest Group wins the morse code section of the RSGB's Affiliated Societies Contest held in January.

OK, so I only came 64th individually, but I was still part of the winning team. And came within, say, 6 contacts of G4IRN who uses an amplifier and is no slouch as an operator.

Now, whether I can keep this up next year after I move to Sarf Lahndan is the big question.