As it turned out I was unable to even make a stab at CQ WW CW. It was always going to be a no-no on that particular weekend as my son and wife were to have a kidney transplant op on the 3 Dec. In the end events overtook us and he was taken in to hospital as a result of a reaction to Heparin. So, the op was cancelled. We've all got back to normality now.
I spent a couple of hours working some nice DX ion 40m and giving away points to my firends and others who were deserving. Please to work 3X5A on six and P3F and others on five bands. I was very pleased to work some Pacific DX on 40m and managed to catch W6, W7 and VE7 long path in the afternoon.
The antennas have only been up and working for a week and already I lost the top 30ft from the 80m vertical and a bit of my 20m yagi D1, so now it's a 3.75 element yagi. I busted the 160m dipole while fixing the 80m vertical. They're both back working again, but the resoanace of the 160m dipole will have to be reduced prior to the Stew Perry contest this Christmas. I also have some work to do to put an 80m trap and a set of capacity hat wires on the 80m vertical to make it work on 160m.
I made a few QSOs in the 144 AFS contest on Sunday and was surprised at how many people could hear my I started with 25 watts, then switched on the amp ...and ran 100 watts. It's still a waste of time trying to do any 2m contesting with less than 400w from my QTH though. And it was a UK contest, with the big hitters just beaming to Eu and working stuff that way. When you call them they spend 5 minutes asking you to repeat your call then they hear you, give you a report and tell you that you're off the back of their beam. Fine, but you're off the front of mine, you're weak and I can still hear YOU! Sadly a few were heard and called that I never did work. But it is real fun to work someone who is weak, far away and can hear well.