Days 127, 128 and 129 – The end of GR6NHU

These were three bumper days on the radio, I operated exclusively with my Royal Wedding callsign for them and ended up with a nice number of QSOs in the log.  Over the period I had 166 contacts using GR6NHU over a total of 38 DXCC entities including one new one for me.  I know some people worked well over 1,000 QSOs using their special callsigns and I applaud them for that but I’m very happy with my total from just my small station.

It’s easier for me to just list callsigns and bands for these three days so that’s what I’ll do.

Day #127 – Saturday
80m SSB
SK70A

40m SSB
MM1PTR/P, MW0DDE, GM0KET, G3JDT, G6AFS/P, G8XXJ, M6AIV, G4HTE, GR6UKO, GW4FCV, G5FX, 2E0GBA, M0CIC, M6NHA, GR4JHI, GW0VEM, ON3GEO, MR0MOD, G1PIE, ON4XL, PD2WOG, G4BFS, MW0SWR, 2E0COO, DL3SBA/P, UR9QQ, MR0MCV, GR0BBB, OK1JOC, IR9Z, DF2SD, S53EO, IK2HKT, EA1HDD

20m SSB
RP66W, 9A8DX, IQ9MY, IT9GAC, IZ8GCE, T70A, II9K, IK6XEJ, IZ6YGS, WX3B, IR8R, SZ8L

15m SSB
EA4BQN, UA3AIU, IT9XTP, 5B4AIF

2m SSB
GR0BBB, OP7V, ON4AKV/P

70cm SSB
G4LIP/P

Day #128 – Sunday
40m SSB
GR3LRS, GB1AVR, GR7AXB, MR0TMW, GB4S, GR0TSH, F8EMH, GB2DHH, MR0CKX, 2E0NJK, GR3RFX, MR0OIC, MW6OTT, GW0WVL, GR3SG

20m SSB
IZ8FDG, IQ6AN, IQ0PG, EA4EQK, IK0PHY, IK6SNR

20m JT65
SM3OMO, LY2BCE, UY7LA, OE1RKS, 9J2KK (new DXCC), 9A8W

Day #129 – Monday
40m SSB
PA3JD, ON7TQ, MR0IAA, GR0BOR, G0RLA, GX3JRM, 2E0DAX, GR0NBD, GR8BGI, MR6HRD, OZ1HHH, GR8DQP

20m JT65
W0RSB, KS4GY, YO2LOJ, W3BI

10m SSB
EA8BWL

6m SSB
EA1GA

With the exception of around 20 contacts which were giving away points in a contest, every other QSO was a proper chat with exchange of an absolute minimum of name, location and station equipment and those which were just that were in the minority – Most were a lot longer.   It was nice to have good chats with people and the bands were certainly favourable for ragchewing over the weekend.

I’ve learned something about my station over the weekend which I don’t understand.  I would tune around and hear stations on 40m calling CQ, generally either special event callsigns with a GB prefix or Royal Wedding R prefix callsigns with large pileups calling them.  When I replied to them, I generally got through the pileup either on the first or second call, the majority being my first shout and I always had good signal reports back.  It was also pleasing to receive a number of unprompted audio reports and after listening to this interview with Bob Heil, it’s easy to see why.  He certainly knows his stuff and I can thoroughly recommend a good Heil microphone or headset to anyone.  But I digress.

Even though I found it very easy to break pileups and received good signal reports from everyone I worked, I had little success calling CQ.  I’d call CQ for a few minutes until I got a reply, we’d complete the QSO and then it would take another ten minutes of calling CQ before I received another reply.  I think that only at one point throughout the weekend did I ever have a number of people calling me.

How is possible to be able to consistently break pileups and receive good strong signal reports but only have little success to calling CQ?  It’s even more puzzling as I was using a callsign which was in demand.

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