CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: VE2IM
Operator(s): VE3DZ
Station: VE2IM
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Sept-Iles, QC
Operating Time (hrs): 41.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 72 7 13
80: 394 17 55
40: 596 18 69
20: 1612 30 115
15: 1523 27 108
10: 123 11 23
------------------------------
Total: 4320 110 383 Total Score = 5,576,323
Club: Contest Club Ontario
Comments:
This is my 9th year of traveling to Zone 2 for CQ WW Contests.
The plan was to drive together with Paul VE3TA, who generously agreed to
help with driving and antenna installation, but unfortunately he had to cancel
due to other obligations. However, he gave me invaluable gift - his
Alpha 87a, for which I am very grateful.
I didn't do such a long driving (1500 km one way) for years, so this appeared
to be quite a challenge. Another problem was the beam at VE2CSI, which was
damaged late last year and has not been fixed up until recently, but thanks to
VE2NN and crew, they managed to put it up on Monday, 4 days before the
contest.
Anyway, I left Toronto on Tuesday around 3 P.M. and was in Montreal at around
9 P.M. after first 550 km of driving.
Stayed overnight at my buddy's (VE2XAA) place and left for Sept-Iles at around
6:30 in the morning.
The driving was good, weather was excellent and I already made a half way at
around noon when get on the ferry at Tadoussac. Everything was just cool and I
felt great.
Usually Mr. Murphy - one way or another accompanies every trip to Zone 2.
This time he decided to strike early and in very different manner. About 1250
km
into the journey (250 km before Sept-Iles) suddenly I heard very loud crash
sound at the rear of my car followed by grinding noise coming from the rear of
my Subaru Outback.
I pulled over and checked everything - no visible damage, nothing was leaking.
I decided to carry on at the speed of 60-70 km/h, because the noise was more
tolerable at this speed.
Made it into Sept-iles late in the evening, met Rodrigue VE2NN and he gave me
keys from the location.
Next morning I went to nearest Subaru dealership (the good thing it was right
across the road, maybe 500 meters from VE2CSI) and to my delight the manger was
speaking good English. They told me to leave a car so the tech would be able to
examine it and promised to give me a call in about half oh ah hour.
I came back, installed my vertical for the 2nd radio and set up the station. It
was 2 P.M. - almost 4 hours since I left my car - nobody called.
I called myself and they answered that technician just came from lunch break
and will be taking my car for a road test. Good news.
Anyway, the problem was my hand break. Something broke inside the rear tire
drum and damaged it.
Good news - my car was fixed (except for the hand break that needs to be
repaired).
Bad news - my trip became $300 more expensive.
Friday morning the VE2DXY (KD3TB, K3FMQ and KD3RF) gang paid me a usual visit
on Friday morning.
At that time station consisted of FT1000MP, IC746, Alpha 87, SB220 and 2
identical laptops was almost set up as SO2R. Almost - because laptops did not
want to talk to each other.
Actually, each laptop saw the other one, I could ping one from another and vise
versa, just one of them for some mysterious reason did not want to share his
information with the other one while using N1MM.
With CTWin everything was perfect, network worked well, however, there was
absolutely impossible to activate PTT under CtWin and I did not really want to
use two different foot switches...
I finally screwed up with one laptop so it wouldn't boot, that left me with
only one computer and I had to rewire everything to be able to do SO2R with one
computer.
I didn't have access to internet in the shack so I had to drive twice to the
motel of VE2DXY to download latest version of N1MM and some other stuff.
Finally around 6:30 local time - an hour and a half before the contest -
everything was up and running with one laptop and I even managed to drive
quickly to the store to buy some grocery for the contest.
Started contest on 20 m with 2nd radio on 40, run was pretty decent on 20 with
99.9% callers being from the U.S.
Calling anybody on a second radio with 800 watts and vertical was quite a
challenge, so I managed very few 2nd radio QSO in the first couple of hours.
I also encountered another problem with IC746 - for some reason, when using
N1MM voice keyer with laptop internal soundcard the input audio level was too
low even at a maximum volume control level and significantly lower than when
you just use microphone.
later I ended up giving up on a second radio, used it on the 2nd radio just for
3 or 4 QSO. Alpha 87a was such a beauty allowing you a quick band change, so I
was able to move countless amount of people from band to band.
However, presence of another 3, all - Multi-Op stations from Zone 2 made me
...eeeh...not too interesting for some guys that I was trying to move.
Also from my experience, I found it much more difficult to concentrate on SO2R
in SSB Contest, rather than in CW.
Another pain in a back was 40 meters band. My both antennas did not resonate
above 7200 so I missed almost 99.9% of DX stations from EU and Oceania that
were listening above 7200 and never bothered to check their own frequency.
Also, being up North means that a lot of guys simply do not hear you.
VK3YXC, ZM2M and others were simply CQing in my face on 40, not even asking for
repeat...
15 was hot both days. I stayed on 15 almost the whole day Saturday, missing
some easy 20 m mults and short 10 m openings.
But I simply couldn't resist. Sometimes the pile-up was enormous.
next day I paid more attention to 20 and 10 and managed to raise a count of
mults on 20 significantly, but 10 was not as good as on Saturday.
I slept 2 hours the first night and 4 hours on the 2nd night.
After the contest we met at Mikey's for our annual "Zone 2" dinner. It was so
nice to see old friends from VE2DXY and VA2ZM multi stations. Really, these
guys are heroes. VE2DXY crew came all the way from Pennsylvania, driving 1600
km
one way, and VA2ZM drove 950 km from Montreal. They definitely won't make it
into the top ten, and probably will not even make into K3EST's "special
mention" list, but they keep on doing it every year... Don't ask me why - I
don't know. I don't know why I'm doing it. Just for fun???
Next morning I woke up at 7 A.M. with heavy head and eye infection, spent 3
hours putting down antennas and packing equipment and left Sept-Iles around
10:30 in the morning. You don't want to know what some people do while driving
1000 km's alone and trying to keep themselves awake! :-)
Anyway, I made it to Montreal at around 9 P.M., spent a night at my friend's
place again, and finally on Tuesday around noon I safely arrived home.
Big thank you to:
- Rodrigue VE2NN and Sept-Iles club members for invaluable help;
- Alex VE2XAA and his family for warm hospitality in Montreal;
- Paul VE3TA for the loan of Alpha 87 and support;
- VE2DXY crew (KD3TB, KD3RF and K3FMQ) for their help;
- Gus VO1MP for help with parts for Mosley PRO37;
- everybody who moved for me giving me new multipliers;
- all for the QSOs.
Congratulations to Jeff VY2ZM and John VC3J on their fantastic scores. Great
stations and excellent operators!
See you all in CQ WW CW.
73 Yuri VE3DZ VE2IM VO1AAM
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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