Pre Contest Preparations
Before the contest it was decided that me and my dad (m3jfm) would put up a full size G5RV, this was done in an inverted V formation. Both legs of the G5RV were fixed right beside the river cherwell which is at the bottom of the garden.
Once this was done it was time to make sure the computer was ready to contest Writelog I set this up for myself and also dad (M3JFM) who would operate when I wasn’t.
Contest Starts
At 00:02 I had my first contact on 3768 with GM0B, from then on I had 35 QSO’s on 80m/40 although there was no DX contacts that did not matter I had great fun being able to work stations on 80m due to the fact the half size g5rv didn’t perform that great on 80m. At 02:31 GMT 03:31 Local time I decided I better get some sleep.
At 10:30 local time I woke up (yes I know but young people like there sleep) I got some breakfast and a cup of tea at by 11:06 GMT I was back in the shack working the contest first contact was LY2KO on 15m. During Saturday afternoon I had some time out to do some college work before carrying on with the contest
Sunday arrived but I didn’t get on the bands till 15:38 GMT during the few hours to come I worked a good stream of VE and USA stations. Then at 17:06 I stopped working the contest.
Summery of thoughts
After working many hours in the contest I think it went well rates could have been higher but over all I enjoyed myself although I had to mix in some college work which took up a lot of the weekend.
The full size G5RV would really great and allowed me to work a good amount of stations on 20m/40m/80m and on 15m I used my trusty slopping dipole.
Rig used was the Kenwood TS570DGE and the Heil Proset with dx insert, using this with vox was great it allowed me to bust many pile ups and also not having to hold a mic at the same time as typing is really good.