RSGB AFS CW 2012

The Contest

□ 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

□ The Rigs and Antennas used in the entry

IC-756ProIII, Quadra linear amplifier, dipole.

Adjudicated Score

□ The summary of points we made during the contest

Our final score was 1490 points, meaning that we lost points from 8 QSOs (the claimed score was 1570 points). Whilst this is slightly better than I claimed from G3PYE last year, it also meant that we was only classed in the Camb-Hams B team, due to some fantastic scores by other Camb-Hams members.
The Camb-Hams A team came 9th of the 81 teams that entered (individual scores were: G7VJR-2170, G3PJT-2120, G6UW-2120 and G3PYE-1740), and the B team came in 26th place.

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

□ 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.