G6UQ enters the 2002 CQ WPX SSB Contest

At the backend of 2001, a number of members agreed it would be a good idea to focus some of our attentions on improving our contest operations for 2002. Traditionally, as a society, the only SSB event has been the Field Day contest in September, therefore, it was clear we needed to take part in other events If we were to achieve our goal.

Scouring the contest calendar, the CQ WPX, timed to take place over the Easter weekend, stuck out as the first opportunity, so, arrangements were made for our Bramhall HQ to be available. The plan was to meet at Leewood Hall at 9am on the Saturday morning, set up the equipment and operate till approximately 6pm that evening with a similar schedule the following day. The intention being to use the two days to practice operating in a contest environment, encourage members to come along and get involved, but also to have some fun!!

The first task for the weekend, however, was to fit a jockey wheel to the mobile trailer mast which had been obtained during 2001 and had since been taking up space in my back garden. David M1ANT completed the work on Good Friday with the help of John, Christine, Christopher and myself, and the mast was delivered to Benja Fold on Saturday morning in good time for operations to begin. Bob M0BIH had also risen from his bed early to ensure the building was open and perhaps more importantly, put the kettle on!!

The weekend operations would be entrusted to the Trio TS130V with Gary’s FT767 as a backup. Antenna’s would be the Cushcraft vertical on top of the mobile mast along with the long wire which is already present as a reserve. In practice, this turned out to be optimistic, as whilst both rigs operated faultlessly, those of you who know the Cushcraft will appreciate the delicate nature of the beast, and after having erected it three times and on each occasion failing to tune it satisfactorily, we sadly had to admit defeat. To make matters worse, the long wire was also not "playing ball", and all this trauma resulted in us working precisely 1, yes one station, by 11am!
Fortunately, the tri-band beam antenna came to our rescue, and within a relatively short space of time, and thanks to the very patient band of helpers, it had been erected on top of the mast and operating wonderfully. Our problems with the long wire would be resolved later in the day with the arrival of Jim G3KAF, who in a minute of inspiration cured our feedback problems with an ingenious counterpoise arrangement.

So to the contest, and as I said earlier, we wanted to use the next two days amongst other things to encourage some of our newer members to get involved. Well, I am pleased to report that this wasn’t a problem!! In fact, I would go so far as to say that some of us didn’t get a look in, with new operators such as Christine & Christopher operating continuously. It was also nice to welcome Liam M0AWV back into the fold, and I’m quite sure he enjoyed his time with the microphone once again, he has an undoubted talent for creating a pile up!!

The first day ended with 200 stations in the log with all these being recorded on 10, 15 & 20 metres. The long wire gave us access to the lower bands, however, we didn’t try these as with us only operating in the daytime, most of the contest at that time was taking place on the higher bands. By the way, for the first time operator, the rules of this particular contest took some time to get used too and several readings of them both before and after the event were needed!!

 
The Sunday panned out similarly, although partway through the day, we switched rigs, John had brought his own rig, as he wanted to test it with the beam antenna to see how it performed, He went home satisfied as it did so admirably with Liam mostly at the helm.

At the end of Sunday evening, 399 stations had been added to the log and a point’s score of 218016 attained. More importantly, we had given those members interested in contesting a chance to have a go in a major event with help and advice around them.

We now have the backbone of a team that can go on and put together a competitive entry in this year’s SSB Field Day, which takes place at the beginning of September. If you are interested in getting involved, please make yourself known to any committee member.

My thanks go to: -The Simcock’s (David M3ANT, Christine M3ATP and Christopher M3BAR), John Hrycan M0BEX, Liam Hrycan M0AWV, Bob Deakin M0BIH, Jim France G3KAF, Walter Pettitt M5AHR, Ray King M1REK, Andy King M1LOL, Tom Spence and Robert Mitchell G7ICO.

Page last updated 11th January 2003

Backto SRS Contest Page