CQ WW DX SSB 2010

The Contest

□ About the contest

Every year, at the end of October, the Cambridge University Wireless Society puts in a major effort in CQ WW DX SSB, operating as M4A. This year was no exception, with 14 operators (many of whom had limited contesting experience, and 10 of whom were under 30 years old) joining us for the 48 hours.

SH5 log analysis

Equipment

□ The Rigs and Antennas used in the entry

Station 1:

• FT-1000MP
• Quadra linear

Station 2:

• FT-1000MP
• TL-922 linear

Antennas shared between both stations:

• Stepp-IR yagi
• 20m 5 element yagi
• 40m rotating dipole
• 40m four-square
• 80m pair of phased verticals
• 160m dipole

Adjudicated Score

□ The summary of points we made during the contest

Adjudicated results

The 2010 results were released in August 2010. M4A won the Multi-Operator 2 Transmitter category for England with a score of 5,175,775 points, a reduction of 8.6% from our claimed score.
The second English station was M9X with 3.9M points.

The CQWW Contest Committee has now published our log.

Claimed

The score we originally claimed:

Contest         : CQ World Wide DX Contest
Callsign        : M4A
Mode            : PHONE
Category        : Multi Operator - Two Transmitter (M2)
Overlay         : ---
Band(s)         : All bands (AB)
Class           : High Power (HP)
Zone/State/...  : 14
Locator         : JO02AF
Operating time  : 48h00

 BAND   QSO  CQ DXC DUP  POINTS   AVG 
--------------------------------------
  160   183   6  45   1     184  1.01 
   80   716  22  84  11     920  1.28 
   40  1047  33 102  16    1726  1.65 
   20  1423  36 117  13    3181  2.23 
   15  1086  38 120   8    2508  2.31 
   10    77  14  38   0     137  1.78 
--------------------------------------
TOTAL  4532 149 506  49    8656  1.91 
======================================
       TOTAL SCORE : 5 669 680

Dupes are not included in QSO counts neither avg calculations

Write-Up

□ My comments about the contest

Operators       : G3ZAY, G4AXX, G4EAG, G4KNO, M0BLF, M0DEG, M0HSW, 
                  M0LRB, M0SKI, M0TDG, M0TOC, M0VFC, M0YCS, MW3YMY

Soapbox         : The Cambridge University Wireless Society's annual 
entry in CQ WW DX SSB is primarily aimed at introducing young amateurs 
to contesting from a reasonably well-equipped station.  This year was 
no exception as 10 out of the 14 operators were aged under 30. 
For the last few years, we have come 2nd to G6PZ in the M/S category 
in England and so, this year, we decided to change to the M/2 category 
as a tactical move. Unsurprisingly, this also allowed us to achieve 
our best claimed score in recent years but, despite this, we have a 
lot to learn about the different operating styles needed in M/2. 
It was a pity that the bands performed less well than we had expected, 
but this was somewhat compensated for by operating from the new CUWS 
shack which is warmer, better-designed and larger than its predecessor!

As every year, CUWS entered the CQ WW DX SSB contest as M4A in October 2010.

Following the publication of the 2009 contest results in the Spring, Phil M0DEG had noticed that our second place in the M/S category (behind G6PZ, as usual), would have been sufficient to win in the M/2 category. Checking the results for England since the introduction of the M/2 category (which allows the use of two transmitters at a time) confirmed that hardly anybody enters in this category, whilst M/S (Single transmitter full-time plus a multiplier station) is much more popular.

On the basis of this observation, it was decided that we should enter in M/2 in 2010, even though we would not be able to put together a full M/2 station. This approach was a bit of a risk in that we could have been beaten even more comprehensively by G6PZ had they also decided to switch entry, but fortunately they didn't.

As usual, the final results from the 2010 entry will not be published for a few more months but, based on our claimed score, we seem to have not only won M/2 in England but also set a new all-time English record, beating M8C's score of just under 4 million points, set in 2006.

This score is the highest score that we have achieved in recent years but this should not be a surprise because we were allowed to use the second transmitter much more. Outside of England (including other parts of the UK), our score would not have won, and so we have a lot to learn about M/2 operating should we decide to continue in this category in 2011.

The extra space at the new CUWS shack probably also contributed to a distinct lack of interaction problems between the stations this year, which was a welcome change. The only issue that we encountered was that one of the three computers lost a lot of time on its system clock during the contest (they had been sychronised at the start). The only explanation seems to be that it was sitting on top of the TL-922 and that seems to have managed to upset the CPU clock quite badly. The computer crashed twice in the test and lost over a minute within a couple of hours!

Bands were in a poor shape for the contest this year, but the 80m phased verticals and 40m four-square did well on the lower bands. We could have done with something better than the low dipole on 160m, however. For 20m, we had a 4-element monobander, and that was our main workhorse. 15m went well but we were limited to the Stepp-IR after problems in the construction of the monobander which we had bought meant that it could not be assembled. For 10m, we had a 5-element monobander but the band wasn't open enough to make much use of it.

Thanks as always to Mark G4AXX, Simon G4EAG and Andy G4KNO from the Granta Contest Group for the loan of a trailer tower and assistance operating, and to Martin G3ZAY for organising the installation of the extra equipment.

QSL Information

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

QSL is OK direct or via the bureau to M0BLF. About M4A QSL Cards.

Previous Entry

□ My last entry in this contest

I last entered CQ WW DX SSB in 2009, when I was again at M4A.