POST CONTEST REPORT
Conditions
As at 14 November 2021 2200 GMT – SFI:78 SN:24 A:4 K:0
No geomagnetic storm reported.
Conditions on the higher bands were not great with 10m particularly poor. I did take a listen on 10m at regular intervals but only hear one station all contest (EA), even 20m was a bit of a slog. 80m productive although the majority were <1000 Km QSO into DL (perhaps unsurprising given that this was a DARC event). Other commitments precluded a full-duration entry this weekend so I’m happy with the 700 or so QSO.
Using QTC for the first time
This was my first time using QTC for receive and transmit and I found them fairly straightforward in Mixw (my RTTY contest software of choice) once I had a set of macros setup correctly although I could do with a bit more practice. I followed the guides here:
http://www.digitalrus.ru/Files/Tuning&Result/DARC_WAE_RTTY.htm and http://www.gu0sup.com/wae.html
Antenna
80m/40m – G7FEK did an OK job on 80m although I am not convinced by it on 40m, I think I need a better solution for 40m. With a bit of thought I may be able to rig up an inverted V for 40m on the same 10m fibreglass mast (DX Commander 10m telescopic) that is holding the fan dipole for 15m and 10m aloft.
For 20m I was using the DX Commander 1/4 wave vertical, this performs okay but I am considering adding a third element to the trapped dipole to give 20/15/10.
No half wave end-fed in this contest – I need to rework the balun.
Radio
Just the trusty Icom 7300 at about 90W.