CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: TF4X
Operator(s): N5ZO
Station: TF4M
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: West Fjords, Iceland
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 218 7 46
80: 44 8 31
40: 195 17 63
20: 1300 30 87
15: 1020 25 89
10: 374 17 55
------------------------------
Total: 3151 104 371 Total Score = 2,959,725
Club: Southern California Contest Club
Comments:
This special opportunity to operate from Thor TF4M's rhombic station was on hold
for some years as I kept returning to ZD8 for one of the CQ WW events in each of
the last 5 years. But it was worth the wait. Station is in North-West corner
of Iceland, about 40 min flight North of Reykjavik. Area has about 160 people
living there and Thor does not have any close neighbors. Imagine ZERO noise
conditions where you will have very difficult time to find any space on band as
it is full of weak signals up to average S3 on meter/panadapter and it sounds
like everyone is 30 over 9 due to non-existent noise. Very few signals were
reaching S7 or above on panadapter, even on completely packed 40 meter band. I
had no rotary antennas, 5 rhombics were available biggest one aimed to JA/Sydney
and other somewhat smaller ones aimed to Houston, Tehran, Quito and Buenos
Aires. Rhombics are quite narrow beamwidth antennas with smaller sidelobes and
you could often clearly hear when station was on its main lobe. Big Sydney
rhombic felt like very powerfull antenna. I was obviously missing couple main
directions like US West Coast and South, ie West Europe and Africa. This is
visible on stations worked as I did not work many zone 3 stations (even missed
zone 3 on 10 meters) and also nothing from Africa other than relatively close
zone 33 stations and one contact to zone 35. These rhombics also did not work
down to 75 meter band very well and indeed Thor told me very clearly before my
arrival that I would be severely handicapped on 80 as he had not made any
special effort yet towards transmitting antenna for that band. For 160 I had
famous Arctic King vertical with beverages and it clearly seemed to play very
well. There was no SO2R possibility at the station (mainly because of antenna
setup), but 2nd radio would have been highly usefull as there was lot of slow
time CQing and it would have been very easy to use 2nd radio to S&P even
more mults. Friends back home in Southern California tell me that I was much
weaker than TF3CW and TF2LL, probably because of narrow beamwidth of the
Houston aimed rhombic, and also disturbed conditions over Iceland area. Local
hams in Reykjavik area reported visible aurora during some part of the contest,
so it was probably South of me and somewhat blocking my signals. Indeed 1st
night was miserable on low bands, nobody seemed to hear me at all and I could
not establish any good runs. I made somewhat of mistake assuming that maybe
antennas just did not work even down to 40 m. However, situation seemed quite
different on low bands at the end of the contest during Sunday night and I was
getting out much better by then but contest was coming to the end. 20 meters
was quite good right from the beginning during 1st night but I could clearly
hear it being even much better for stations in Southern Iceland. I went bit
late to 10 meters on 1st day and it cost me some as 10 never really opened for
me during Sunday and even 15 m was quite poor during Sunday. I decided to do
full Arctic conditions immersion and operated full 48 hrs with few brief
brakes. There was quite a bit slow time and I could have easily slept few
hours on 2nd night but I did not feel terribly tired other than couple hours
around noon time on Sunday and even that felt shorter zombie period than
usually for me. All in all it was great experience to operate the contest from
22nd zone for me and experience unique noise conditions and unique rhombic
antennas. There are not many rhombics around these days in any kind of use,
even less in amateur use, and it could very well be that this was my only time
ever to experience these antennas. I think they worked very well on high bands
to directions they were aimed to and I think even on 40 m rhombics seemed to
work better as contest progressed. I passed old 25 years old Icelandic record
multipliers before end of Saturday, and at the end I was able to improve that
old record actually held by Thor himself by 50 % to almost 3M, so I'm quite
happy about that result ! Thank you Thor allowing me to come and use your
unique station and being great host during my stay here ! I also had great
time in Reykjavik after the contest and we got together with local contesters
twice to swap the stories. See you all from Mozambique for CW portion ! 73 de
Marko N5ZO
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