Dominic Smith ⇓

RSGB AFS CW 2012

The joint Camb-Hams/CUWS entry in AFS CW, January 2012
Win-Test screen

The Contest

Clock

□ About the contest

This contest was the fourth of six contests forming the AFS Super-League, which Cambridge University Wireless Society and the Camb-Hams (the social part of Cambridgeshire Repeater Group) entered jointly.

I operated as M1BXF together with Simon G4EAG from M1BXF's shack.

Equipment

Rig

□ The Rigs and Antennas used in the entry

IC-756ProIII, Quadra linear amplifier, dipole.

Claimed Score

□ The summary of points we made during the contest

Our claimed score is 1570 points. Whilst this is slightly better than I claimed from G3PYE last year, it almost certainly puts us in the Camb-Hams B team, due to some fantastic scores by other Camb-Hams members. The QSO total was 162, including 5 dupes.

Write-up

□ My comments about the contest

Unfortunately we were a bit late starting due to a last-minute attempt to get keying working from Win-Test, which isn't normally set-up in Gav's shack. We then made the mistake of operating S&P at first, which meant that we only made 15 QSOs in the first half hour.

We made up some of this slow start during the rest of the contest, but we had regular interruptions as we attempted to get technology working. We were attempting to use an elaborate system involving a Flex 1500 receiving the whole band, feeding this to a CW Skimmer, which in turn fed the frequencies of all stations into the Win-Test bandmap. This should have been a great asset, but we experienced problems getting the frequencies to transfer accurately (there seemed to be some odd offsets being applied), and we wasted probably a total of 15 minutes trying to get this working during the contest, instead of concentrating on rate.

We learnt a lot, though, and it was great to operate from M1BXF's beautifully-designed shack. Thanks to him for having Simon and I.

QSL Information

QSL Stamp

□ How to get a QSL-Card for a Contest QSO

QSL is OK direct or via the bureau to M1BXF. Please do not send me cards for this contest entry.

Document changes:

2011-01-11: Page launched

[x] Me

I am Dominic Smith and this is my personal website.
I am a 30 year-old radio amateur, technical author and website developer living in Cambridge.   More about me »