[Elecraft] ARRL 10m contest G3YMC

Tue Dec 17 01:57:01 2002

I had a serious 'dabble' in the ARRL contest last weekend as below.

Callsign  G3YMC
QTH  Bracknell, Berks
Section CW SO QRP
Operating hours (approx) 19

CW QSOs 348  Multipliers 86 (46 DXCC, 40 states/prov)
Claimed score 119,712

Equipment Elecraft K2, 5W output   5/8 wave vertical groundplane

Comments:
Great fun, and although a bit of a struggle with my QRP I was pleased 
with results. I thought conditions although fair could have been 
better. There was a noticeable difference in propogation between the 
two days. Saturday there was activity by 0630z but the band faded 
totally around 1745. Sunday didn't really open until 0800 but stayed 
open later until 1830 (at which time both ZF2TN and TI5N were coming 
in 599 with no other signals on the band.  I missed both 5B4AHA and 
ZC4DW who I was expecting to come up well in strength as the morning 
progressed but if anything they got weaker. The quirks of 10m!

In last years results the only UK entrant in CW QRP achieved 84k 
points and the world leader was on 400k. Considering that conditions 
were way up last year compared with this I guess my score is very 
respectable.  GW4ALG in Chepstow put up an identical vertical for his 
K2 and surprisingly achieved virtually an identical score so like 
minds think alike!

As usual the K2 worked flawlessly as my experience in CQWW indicated 
it would do. The antenna I used, a 5/8 wave vertical, was an 
experiment. I used my 10m fibreglass pole and taped a 7.3m wire to it 
for the radiating element, and four quarter wave radials for the 
ground plane. Matching was with a series 1.5uH coil at the feedpoint 
to roughly produce 50 ohms - final tuning was via the KAT2 which had 
no problem in producing a perfect match.  Switching between the 
vertical and my 60 ft longwire showed little difference between 
signals on most paths, but the background noise was noticeably lower 
on the vertical.

Best DX was XW1IC and I worked a few more new ones to bring my K2 
county total to 164.

73s Dave G3YMC

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