For some years now, whilst CUWS has been regularly fielding teams for the major phone contests in the amateur radio contesting calendar, there has been little representation in CW contests. This is regarded as a shame by some but it also gives an opportunity to those who are active on the CW parts of the bands to use the G6UW shack both for some contesting practice and to give their own callsigns a QRO airing and to try and nab a few new ones for their country totals.

CQWW CW is generally regarded as the biggest CW contest of the year and there are many expeditions to rare and semi-rare countries all over the world. Often, these expeditions involve taking large antennas and amplifiers to these countries making them easy pickings when combined with G6UW’s large antennas. After some negotiations with other CUWS members keen to have a go in the 2006 contest, it was decided that I should have the Saturday to work what I could.

The original intention had been to travel up on the Friday night and be ready for the start of the contest. It became clear in the week leading up to the contest that this would not be feasible as work committments meant that an arrival in Cambridge would not be possible before 2100 and an 80m antenna would have to be set up in the dark as there is no permanent one currently at the shack. Taking this into account, I decided that it was best to get a good night’s sleep at home on the Friday then head up the next morning. Waking the next morning, I discovered that there was a serious accident on the route to Cambridge I normally use. I waited a little for this to clear then headed north.

The shack is pretty well set up for getting on the air with win-test and the rig interfaces permanently ready. In addition to this, I had use of a microham microkeyer to provide keying from the keyboard.

As time was short and the main aim was to expand my DXCC totals, I decided to go for Single-Op All Band Assisted High Power so that I could use the packet to sniff out the juicier stations. Things started off well with lots of DX audible even though winds forced me to keep the tower wound down. However, within 20 minutes of starting, a squally shower swept through accompanied by thunder and lighting. The only thing to do was to unplug everything in the shack and power down until the storm had passed. This took a good 40 minutes and there were several lightning strikes in the fields surrounding the shack. Once the lightning had passed, things were back up and running again quickly. Conditions were reasonable for the most part and 15m was open to the US and other parts of the world. The best DX worked on 15m was VK9AA for an all time new country at around 1330z. Small runs were possible to the states at times but these did not sustain for very long and the band opened and closed several times. There were also problems with the microkeyer at times which meant some of the keying had to be sent manually. The problem was eventually traced to RF getting into the USB lead from the PC to the microham and a well wrapped ferrite ring seemed to cure this.

In the end, I didn’t operate too long after sunset due to other things coming up and the final totals were as follows:

For only a few hours work, this seemed reasonably successful with a reasonable score and a total of 82 unique DXCC worked which included 7 all time new entities and numerous new band/countries worked. Others also reported successes in the contest with good conditions on the higher bands (although sadly there was not much on 10m).

There is an increasing interest in CW among the active members who join our contest entries and hopefully, it will not be too long until we can mount a major multi-op entry into a big CW contest again.

Article by Dominic Smith, M0BLF, edited by Thomas Wootten, M0FFX.

I participated in the CQWW DX SSB Contest from the Cambridge University Wireless Society, using our contest callsign M4A.

A short audio clip (1m37s) of me running on 20m at about 1220UTC on Sunday can be heard here (RealAudio format) or here (MP3 format).

Summary

Operators: DL5RB, G3ZAY, G7VJR, KC5WNG, M0BLF, M0DEG, M0FFX, M0HSW, M0TDG, OZ7AGL

Soapbox: A very fun contest entry with a large team made up almost entirely of current students or recent graduates of Cambridge University. We had our fair share of problems, such as melting two baluns during the weekend, which left us with 80m for much of Sunday evening, and we also had only one 14/21/28MHz antenna, so the mult station could not use these bands while the run station was on one of them. Nevertheless, we improved on our score from last year and felt that conditions weren’t as bad as they might have been. More information at http://www.domsmith.co.uk/contests/cqww06/

Set-up

Run station: FT-1000MP, Quadra, Dunestar filters.

Mult station: FT-2000, TL-922, Dunestar filters.

Antennas: 160m dipole, 80m phased array, 80m dipole, 40m four-square, 40m rotating dipole, Stepp-IR.

The antennas were shared between the run and mult stations. This means, of course, that while the run station was on 20m, 15m or 10m, we could not use the mult station on any other of these bands (except if we forced the 40m rotating dipole onto 21MHz).

Logging was with Win-Test, which worked very well except for a small bug in the communication with the FT-2000 (hardly surprising given how new the rig is).

Some pictures of the set-up are at http://www.domsmith.co.uk/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=892.

Highs and lows

Good points were beating last year’s score and taking the opportunity to introduce many students to contesting for the first time.

Low points included melting two baluns, which meant that we couldn’t use 80m for the last four hours on Sunday; getting the mobile tower stuck and not having sufficient antennas for a full mult station.

Band breakdown

(QSO totals below include dupes)

Distribution

There were 1970 unique calls in the log, of which 2 were worked on all bands, 8 on five bands, 24 on four bands and 82 on three bands.

Rates

There were 76 minutes during which we sustained a rate of four QSOs/minute or higher (individual minutes, not one 76 min period!). On average, we made about 1.02 QSOs/minute during the 41h13min on-time.

The hourly contacts per hour rates were:

Thanks to everyone who contacted us!

Dominic’s site can be found at http://www.domsmith.co.uk

Statistics on this page created by SH5 – rescab.nm.ru

SH5 v1.18 (25 June 2006)

M0BBB and M0TDG were portable around Cambridge for this one while G3ZAY and newly licenced M0TJH manned G6UW for our first full 3 station entry into the this competition for 3 years. Local QRN hampered our efforts somewhat and antenna and transceiver problems led to M0BBB only being able to operate for some of the time. M0TDG was operating from the terrace of his College’s sports ground in what became sub-zero temperatures by the end and this reduced his rate (as well as his ability to type or speak) by the end.

Scores were as follows:

The final results put us in 9th place overall which was quite pleasing as we could still improve on our score by a lot provided we sort out the equipment problems and we weren’t too far off the 6th place score. A top 5 score could well be possible if we can muster 3 stations again next year.

The complete results listings are available at: http://www.contesting.co.uk/hfcc/results/2005/afsssb2005.shtml

G3ZAY, M0TDG and M0TJH decided to do a low key operation in this contest to provide some contest training. A poor antenna and a lack of operating time did not lead to a great score.
Our final claimed score was 63336.

Results are pending.

We were lacking a multiplier station due to lack of operators for this contest so there was no chance of putting up a competitive score but we still put in a Multi/Single entry. Conditions were very poor this year and this further reduced our score with a final claimed score of 956238. Operating this one were G3ZAY, M0BBB, M0BLF, DJ9AO/M0TAO, M0TDG and M0TJH.

The article from QST covering the contest has been published but only covers the top ten places in each category and we were well below making the top ten in M/S. The article can be found on the ARRL website as a PDF here.

After a strong start and, rather unusually, having been ready for the contest before it began, our entry into the HF World championships ended with a disappointingly low score. Software and equipment problems (apologies to those who heard our morse software doing an impression of a heart monitor monitoring someone going into cardiac arrest) were compounded by poor conditions and only having simple antennas for the low bands so a final score of only 603064 was achieved. G3ZAY, M0BLF, M0TDG and M0TJH (with BBQ support from G7VJR) were operating as M4A in the Multi/Single category. It was not a score that will make us competitive but it was still an enjoyable contest and gave good practice to the ops, especially those who were trying serious CW contesting for the first time.

Our score was reduced to 563760 upon checking leaving us 19th in Europe in our category. Given better low band antennas and conditions, it’s felt that our score could have been much improved. The top score of 2.8 million is a long way off but better preparation in the future could see us greatly improve our ranking in the future for this contest. Results can be found at http://www.arrl.org/contests/results/prscores.html?con_id=91.

The last weekend in October saw CUWS’s annual entry into what has become the largest HF contest of the year. We were at a disadvantage this year compared to last year’s efforts due to a lack of operators. Setup the previous weekend had not been as successful as had been hoped as we had not had time to put up the second tribander on the smaller tower. We knew already that we wouldn’t have enough operators to run a mult station and this removed the chance for people to casually turn up and mult hunt when they were free. A lot of work was required on the Friday of the contest to get the shack up, ready and running on all 6 of the contest bands. We successfully managed to be ready on 10m through 80m but testing the 160m dipole at dusk showed an extremely high SWR. After a little checking, it was found that the balun on the dipole had shorted internally and we didn’t have a spare to quickly change. There was not enough daylight left to try an alternative so that band had to be left. Our link to the packet cluster was also down and despite a scheme using a telnet to GPRS to bluetooth to ethernet to wireless LAN network was a possible alternative, it was decided that it would be too unstable to work for more than short periods of time during the contest.

The start of the contest came and it was impossible to establish a clear frequency on either 40m or 80m. Searching around showed there to be S9+ noise right up and down both bands. Search and pounce was the method of choice for this portion of the contest. Throughout the night, it proved extremely difficult to find a run frequency and it was also difficult to pick out all but the strongest stations. One good run was possible for about 20 minutes on 80m and a few stations were worked in the US on 40m but very few QSOs were made overall. Things picked up a little once dawn came and 20m began to open but things were quite slow and there was not a lot to work outside of Europe. The afternoon gave better pickings with some good runs to the US on 15m then 20m as dusk came and went. Things slowed down again once 20m closed and the low bands, once again, proved crowded and difficult to hold a clear frequency on. The highlight of the night proved to be a good run on 80m to the states at about 0400z. Sunday dawned with better conditions to the east giving good runs on the high bands. Good runs were achieved into the US after midday right through until when 20m closed after dusk. The last evening did not yield much in the way of DX but a few more local multipliers were chased up and a good run into Europe was established on 80m to add a few final points to the total.

The call for this contest was M4A and the operators were Martin, G3ZAY; Michael, G7VJR; Daniel, M0ERA; Elisabeth, M0ELI; Tim, M0TDG; and Tom, M0TJH.

The equipment used was as follows:

• Yaesu FT-1000MP
• Heil Headset
• Writelog
• MFJ-434 DVK

Antennas were as follows:

• 10/15/20: TH5 at 20m
• 40: 4-square and rotatable dipole at 23m
• 80: 3 way sloper beaming west and inverted V at 20m

Once the contest had finished, we had a final claimed score of 1668238 with 1934 QSOs. The score breakdown was as follows:

Given our lack of packet and a mult station, this was felt to be a good effort given difficult overnight conditions, the lack of one band (even if it was 160m) and this being the first serious HF contest for some of operators.

Results are pending.

Mid January is the time for the RSGB’s Affiliated Societies SSB (AFS) contest – a 4 hour sprint for three separate stations to make as many QSOs as possible on 80 metres – no multipliers, just work anyone and everyone. Most clubs encourage as many of their members as possible to enter from their home stations, worrying about who to regard as the ‘A’ team when results are in. But for CUWS it is not so simple – with our only permanent station at the G6UW shack we have a major problem putting two more stations on the air at all.

This year, thanks to Michael G7VJR, we were able to use the Trinity Hall sports pavilion and the offices of his company ‘Third Light’ at Milton. The stations were all ready for delivery and set-up by Martin G3ZAY and Michael on Saturday morning – but drunken revellers caused a serious problem by heaving a milk bottle through the rear window of Michael’s car during Friday night, making it unusable. Fortunately the Cambridge traffic wasn’t too bad and Martin managed to make all the necessary deliveries in time so we were ready to go with 20 minutes to spare.

Stavros, M0BBB, our star contester, took charge of the G6UW station with a dipole at 50 feet, FT1000MP and Quadra linear. He ran steadily on 3699 kHz for more than half the contest, searched and pounced for a few minutes in the middle, and finished on 3618 kHz with 317 valid QSOs.

Tom M0TJH operated /P from the sports pavilion using G3ZAY’s FT890, TL922 linear, and an inverted Vee hung from a support contrived with a 20 foot ladder and the boom of a TH3 beam.
Unlike M0TDG last year (who was forced to operate ‘al fresco’ and was nearly dead from exposure by the end) Tom had a centrally heated position next to the squash courts – though the sound of squash balls hitting the wall of the court behind him did cause some VOX tripping every now and then. Noise levels were a little higher for some reason and Tom managed to finish with 173 valid QSOs.

Martin operated from Michael’s offices with an FT847, 12 volt solid state linear running about 300W, and an inverted Vee at about 30 feet supported by a fishing pole lashed to another old TH3 boom.
He started running just above 3600 kHz and moved to search and pounce when things got slow just before 5.00 pm. He feels he probably left this a bit late as the band had changed with sunset and there was a substantial dead zone close in – only the GMs and nearer EU stations were loud. Nevertheless he was satisfied with his score of 252 valid QSOs.

Tabulated, the results were as follows:

So the team total was 7420 – and based on last year’s scores this would have placed us 5th overall in the team listings. But there was a little more activity this time so we may be lucky to hold on to 9th place. Leading stations were making around 360 contacts so it is clear we need to match their expertise/equipment and ensure that with a suitable remote antenna we can listen around the band at the same time as our voice keyer is blasting out the CQs. Something to think about for next year – there must be enough space at the farm to do this.

Results are pending.