UKEICC 80m SSB Contest...Wed 1st March 2017

The UKEICC run short one hour contests on 80m which are ideal as they don't take up much time.

Back at the start of February, I was on for one of the SSB legs and I managed to work 8 stations with my 5 watts into an 80m dipole. At the time, I wasn't set up properly to log stations and submit an entry within the space of an hour. In hindsight, this was a pity as there is a multiplication factor of 4 for anyone working a QRP station on 5 watts or less.

The next SSB leg was on the 1st of March 2017 and I worked 18 stations this time around, again with 5 watts. Even though I started 10 minutes late, conditions seemed much better than last time and the map below shows the locators worked...

I tried calling CQ a few times but it's hard to have much of a presence on the band with 5 watts. Instead, all of the stations I worked were as a result of calling them.

The two furthest stations that I worked were PE4BAS in JO33 and SM5CSS in JO89. I was also their best DX and the multiplication factor of 4 for them for working a QRP station would have given them a good few extra points. As can be seen below, they finished 2nd and 3rd out of 44 entries in the Low Power (100w or less) Unconnected section.

Low Power - Unconnected

  Call Pwr Grid Raw Dupe Bust NIL Good Total -- Best DX --
  QSOs QSOs Pts Call Km
1 SO7BIT L JO91 47 0 2 0 45 209 EI5KF 1915
2 SM5CSS L JO89 36 0 0 0 36 202 EI7GL 1853
3 PE4BAS L JO33 61 2 0 0 59 187 EI7GL 1107

I heard several strong French stations but none calling CQ. I got an 'EI7??' back from DL8UD in JO43 but I was just too weak to complete a QSO. Strangely enough, I don't remember hearing any GM stations from Scotland...so maybe it was just chance?

All in all, it was really interesting to see just how far 5 watts can go.

Results on UKEICC website.