I had heard that Gordon MM0GOR (MM1E) was off to the Isle of Man as part of MD1U effort, so I thought it would be nice to keep the Isle of Bute activated for the contest.
Unfortunately the RSGB has got involved with politics again, last time they thought they knew better than the CMO and felt they had to play about with the rules for COVID.
Now the RSGB wants to get involved directly with world affairs by disallowing Russian and Belarus radio hams to compete (check logs only). Maybe its just me, but I thought that politics was a no go subject for radio hams to discuss on the air and that an important part of amateur radio was to extend the hand of friendship and break down any perceived differences through communication. This stance seems to have been lost on the men and women that are currently running the show at RSGB HQ especially in the contest committee.
Lets just keep ham radio a friendly place for like minded people despite the crazy world around us.
Anyway, back to the IOTA contest. As I blogged earlier during COVID, I'm always at an alternative location other than my home address for the IOTA contest dates, the RSGB stopped me competing even from my own holiday house (EU5) during COVID. Personally speaking I'm now so disenchanted with the IOTA contest and the way it has been run, I missed last year completely and I was also going to boycott it this year due to its world affairs stance, but in the end I made a last minute decision to go across to Bute and air MM3T.
This year due to lack of enthusiasm, I went light with a QRP entry. This was a mistake. In past years the fun factor was definitely affected due to wire antennas, compromised setup, uncomfy operating positions (car/tent), poor condx and low power. The less effort I made the less fun I had. Over the last decade I have been looking for that perfect effort to fun ratio and I had learnt that the K2 with 100W and an aerial51 light weight off-centre fed dipole on a 12m spiderpole was the sweet point for me. Verticals are pointless from Bute as DX interest in IOTA is sparse compared to EU and there is hardly any clear sea path to anywhere from any point on Bute. High angle radiation takes advantage of being on EU123 and working back to EU5 for maximum point advantage. This year I forgot all those lessons and went QRP with 5w from an Elecraft KX3 to an EFHW in an inverted L format. The results were very predictable, lots of running with very few answers.
I have a contesting weakness in that I enjoy running and hate search and pounce. The reason for this is when I listen to some other operators whilst enduring S&P, their inefficiency is astounding. I get very impatient and end up shouting at the radio in frustration. These inefficiencies are well documented on this blog so I won't rake over that again. When I'm running, I take great pleasure in rattling through a pile-up in the most efficient manner possible. People in the past have commented on my operating style as "rude", no pleasantries, minimalistic and efficient. When a station goes into the noise, I don't ask for repeats I just drop them and carry on. When a station asks for my call I just call CQ again. When the pile-up intensifies my speed goes up to roll off the slow ops and as it becomes sporadic my speed goes down to aid copy. Its a joy to be in control. Listening to others they will hold a 10 deep pile up asking for repeats and struggling for minutes to complete a Q.... crazy, and I seem to always tune onto them just as they start to work someone playing QRP and running 1mw into a coat hanger.... "again again G8 again". I do understand that search and pounce is necessary for the score, but i find it an absolute chore. This maybe because I am not a dxer, I do not collect QSLs and I don't have a per band DXCC country interest. I'm therefore really poor at search and pounce. Also I hardly ever use the cluster as having someone else point you at the DX kind of makes it too easy, its like going fishing without a rod and someone else handing you their rod after hooking a big fish and letting you reel it in... pointless.
Anyway EU123 was on the air until I worked GM7M who had 5x my Q total after only 4 hours. I decided that EU123 was being well aired by that team and that QRP wasn't for me. I did notice an increase in stations asking for the report again and got the feeling they were expecting EU5 and when they got EU123 they needed to confirm....that's what I get for missing a few years IOTA.
There was an extra incentive to pack up, after struggling for 1.5 hours to get the antenna up on the beach, I slumped (sweating) into the shack/driver seat switched on the radio only to hear "brrr brrr brrr brrrrrrrrrrp" repeating over and over at S9 on every band. And no it wasn't all the clangers on .073 it was some other crappy data nonsense. I then noticed a roadside connection cabinet, so probably some kind of botched cable joint or termination. I seriously considered just accepting this bad luck and working round it, but after coffee I worked up enough energy to swing the top horizontal section of the inverted L round the beach to minimise the interference. I got it down to S3 and tied it off there just in time for the contest start.
Of course I started running first and got very little interest. Its always depressing when a caller comes in on 40m from EU5 (G4IRN) at well over S9 and then nothing.... How can this be, surely there are 1000s of keen EU5 stations searching for elusive IOTA multipliers.... the answer to this today was apparently: NO. If the Radcom "The Last Word" is to be believed and most 80m conversations, most UK operators are anti-contest. The opportunity is there to have a lot of fun collecting all the IOTA offerings round the UK and being extremely competitive, but it seems to be trendy right now to hate contesters and try to insist on have nets and chatting about tomatoes and illnesses through some really cool contest activities. Its frustrating when you go to a lot of effort to activate an island so find the band full of strong signals all disinterested in even giving contesting a chance. The amount of negativity and moaning I hear mostly on 80m SSB from the anti-contest brigade is astounding.... and nothing may I add is being done by the contesters back to this negativity (there exists a gentlemanly silence). It would be nice to hear one of these "all I heard was "CQ contest" and I just reached for the off switch" conversations on 80m and someone to stand up to them and say "well I don't agree, do you know becoming more informed in contesting could better your home station, do you know you can become a better operator, did you know your topics of conversation don't need to be about gardening".
With antenna and radio packed up I headed home through Bute Fest at Ettrick bay to catch an early ferry home. Note to self, never do QRP again with a poor wire antenna in a compromised location.
