MJ0C, SINGLE-BAND 15M in CQWW 2001 Phone
by Don G3XTT (this article first appeared in March 2002 issue of CDXC Digest)
My links with Jersey go back to 1982, when a group of us made a modest DXpedition there for the 50th anniversary of the Cambridge University Wireless Society. Our host was Dennis GJ3YHU, who had arranged for us to operate from his work QTH, the TV station at Fremont Point on the north coast of the island, a superb location atop a 350ft cliff, with a clear seawater take-off from W through to JA (and actual views of three DXCC countries - GJ, GU and F). His employers even sponsored the QSL cards!
Our link with Dennis led to further operations, including multi-single efforts in CQWW Phone in 1983, 1985 and 1989 and an ARRL CW effort (G3WGV, GJ3YHU and myself) in 1993. In 1990 I made a single-op all-band effort in CQWW CW. Over the weekend of the 1985 contest Martin G3ZAY and I also used Jersey as our starting point for the first IOTA expedition to Les Minquiers, a reef between Jersey and France.
My last trip to Jersey was in November 2000, a sad one as it was to attend the funeral of Dennis's XYL, Sandra, who had been a wonderful hostess to us on each and every one of our visits.
Dennis invited me over for the 2001 CQWW Phone, with the thought that each us might do a single-band entry in the contest. I was happy with this, as single-band requires less effort in terms of set-up and testing than does a multi-band (in 1990 I got no sleep between getting off the ferry at 0600 on the Friday and finishing dismantling the station around 0100 on the Monday). As conditions had been somewhat variable, and the prognosis for the contest weekend was for possible solar disturbances, I decided that l5m might be a better bet than 10m. Looking at the various British Isles records for the contests, the 15m record also looked eminently beatable, whereas the l0m one would have been a somewhat tougher proposition.
EQUIPMENT
Choice of equipment and antennas was pretty straightforward. I would take my FT1000D and Alpha 89 (expeditions are easy when you just load up the car and take a ferry), and borrow the D68C Force-12 4-element Yagi. I would also need to take a rotator, which meant dismantling my 6m antenna installation at home, but at least there was a tower awaiting me in Jersey, albeit in a horizontal position! Finally, my laptop with the latest version of CT, having upgraded the software at Dayton earlier in the year.
Choice of call was easy. In the past I had tended to use the Cambridge University Wireless Society call (GJ6UW), but the Society is currently experiencing a resurgence of interest, so I thought it best not to borrow their call for the weekend in case it was needed in Cambridge. Instead I decided to fly the CDXC flag with MJ0C.
SET UP
Perhaps the best piece of news was when my son, Edward, decided to join me. He had never been to Jersey and fancied a short break. This meant I would have help in setup and with logistics generally. Edward had also just acquired a shiny new car, which he was keen to use, though I'm not sure he was too happy with an Alpha 89 putting indentations in his fancy upholstery! Travel to Jersey meant an 0430 start, to catch the Sea-Cat from Weymouth at 0730, arriving Jersey around midday. We travelled on the Thursday, to allow a day and a half for set-up. With Edward and Dennis to help, it was relatively easy to manhandle the 20ft steel mast into a vertical position on the roof of the main building at the TV station, and then it was a case of donning my climbing belt and setting up the beam and rotator.
Fortunately the wind, by GJ standards, wasn't too strong, and the job was accomplished without too much difficulty. I well remember taking down the TH5 after my 1990 trip - the wind was so strong and the roof so slippery from rain, that I had to tie myself to the parapet to avoid being blown sideways across the roof.
Station set-up was, of course, trivial. I had also decided to use a 15m Dunestar filter between rig and linear and a G0OPB 15m low-pass filter on the output of the linear, to minimise possible EMC problems. With no band-switching to do, there was zero risk of blowing up the filters, always a possibility in multiband efforts.
THE CONTEST
In the event, Dennis had decided he probably wouldn't do much, if any, operating, so I would be on my own for much of the time, although Dennis dropped by occasionally to see how things were going, and Edward also came by from time to time to ensure that I was fed and watered. Other than that, he was off sightseeing, with a local guide by way of Dennis's son Stephen who was also celebrating his l8th birthday over the contest weekend.
Saturday started with a bang, with a bunch of Caribbean multipliers to be had during the first hours of the contest. The band then closed for a couple of hours, but re-opened shortly before 0600 and I was soon running at well over 100 an hour, albeit mainly to Europe, with the occasional DX such as ZL and KL7. Disappointingly, JA stations seemed few and far between. North America started coming through late morning and for a few hours the problem was whether to beam JA or W. This is where a second Yagi would undoubtedly have been useful! I had actually put up a quarter-wave vertical, run to the second receiver on the FT-1000D, in the hope that it would be useful as a multiplier-spotting antenna but, in the event, I could hear rather better on the beam, even off its sides. This was presumably because the beam was at 60ft or so, on top of the building, with a short run of co-ax, whereas the vertical was at ground level and some way away.
I spent much of the Saturday running, hoping that the multipliers would call me, as I didn't want to break off from the good rates I was getting. Just occasionally I would slip off and have a quick search-and-pounce session across the band.
Rates were good, and I felt comfortable with the first day's results, with over 2000 QSOs in the log after the first 24 hours. The antenna and location were also working well. I think I only failed with one multiplier I called, and that was a Caribbean station that was obviously beaming stateside. It looked as though some serious record-breaking could be on the cards.
AURORA
In the event, of course, life wasn't like that. There was some sort of solar disturbance that meant the bands were nowhere as good on the Sunday, and I made less than 800 QSOs the second day. The rates just weren't there, although I had some nice sessions working multipliers. A series of CQ calls to the Far East in the afternoon, for example, while most Europeans were beaming stateside, netted me calls from XX9AU, 9M6A, XU7ABZ, HS1CKC, A50A and T88CC, some of them double mults. I ended with some strange gaps in my log in terms of zones and countries and, indeed, the only zone 38 I worked in the whole contest was ZD9IR! My last mult was 9G5KW, at 2310. I rather suspect, and this is also the view of others, that country totals were a little down on usual as a result of September 11th, which had caused some potential contest expeditioners to stay at home.
RESULTS
I ended the contest with a claimed score of 1.127m from 2784 QSOs, 35 zones and 141 countries. This would have been a new British Isles record, but I believe GI0KOW was also single-band 15, and Robert will almost certainly be ahead of me, with his stacked Yagis and well-engineered permanent installation. In retrospect, it is clear that 10m carried much of the traffic over the contest weekend, and I might have been better to select that band, but you can never be sure how the propagation will play, Whatever happens, I will at least have set a new GJ record! And the joy of going off to somewhere reasonably rare like GJ is that you will also make a lot of other entrants happy, both by handing out the multiplier and, for some, an all-time new band country. Quite apart from which, it's good fun! My thanks to Dennis GJ3YHU for his hospitality, to my son for his labouring efforts, and to CDXC for use of the contest callsign.