BARTG HF RTTY Contest
Last weekend saw the annual BARTG RTTY Contest. Like last year, I took part with Charlie GM1TGY operating as GM5G in the M/S High Power category, one radio. In the same category last year, we came #3, so I had some hope that we might have been able to improve on that, but it wasn't to be.
2 am Saturday, and on the shack's TV running DXChrono, I could see that the aurora was pretty much sitting on top of us. The result was that 80/40m was really slow going. I think most of the night we were on 80m.
We knew Saturday morning we would have to go QRT as we had just replaced the SPID RAK rotator that turns the EAntenna 59+. It was, for some reason, binding, so tower over. Found the issue: a jubilee clamp was getting caught, stopping full rotation (doh). So we made some modifications and got back on the air around 16:00z. I was optimistic that 15/10m would be open, but the aurora hadn't really shifted. Hence, I ended up sitting on 20m running with a very good rate, but as night drew in and the aurora conditions dived again.
In the end we had run out of people to work around 01:00z so decided to call it and get some sleep rather than work nothing however we was back on air before sunrise around 06:00z the rate however was slow and it was just a matter of jumping between 20/40m looking for QSOs when the rates dropped 15m opened up briefly on Sunday and on 10m I worked just 3V8LL.
As Sunday afternoon progressed, conditions worsened, with more auroral flutter and distorted signals, followed by periods of the bands just going totally dead with no signals to be seen. It stayed in this pattern up until the very end.
That said, the shack was working perfectly, using a Kenwood TS890S (FSK keying), Gemini 1200 amp and our usual selection of antennas
- EAntenna 59+ (20-10m)
- 2el Phase for 40m
- 40m Dipole
- 80m Quarter-wave Vertical
- 80m Dipole
- K9AY for RX
We finished the contest early at midnight after running out of callers, spent over 40 minutes on 80m calling CQ to myself, but we ended up with 534 QSOs, not including Dupes.
Maybe next year will be better