RAC Winter Contest - 2020
Call: VE4RAC
Operator(s): VE4GV
Station: VE4GV
Class: SO Mixed HP
QTH: MB
Operating Time (hrs): 10:27
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs CW Mults Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
160:
80: 32 22 4 5
40: 226 131 8 5
20: 365 514 9 10
15: 28 28 4 3
10:
6:
2:
----------------------------------------
Total: 641 695 25 23 Total Score = 325,824
Club: Radiosport Manitoba
Comments:
I somewhat reluctantly took the callsign for this year's Canada winter test.
Don't get me wrong , I really liked the RAC winter contest but having the VE4RAC
call assigned to you implies a certain level of commitment to ensure that the
multiplier is available during the contest. I wasn't sure how conditions would
be and whether my low band noise level locally would allow me to do an efficient
job. I wanted to make a decent effort to provide VE4RAC in both modes. That
means no casual efforts and dedicated concerted time spent in the chair, no
matter what condx may be.
Conditions had not been particularly good as we approached sunset here in
Manitoba and I was not looking forward to 40 meters knowing the local noise
problem I have adjacent to my QTH. I don't like 40 meters at the best of times,
and I didn't think that very much would be happening on 20 meters by the time
6:00 o'clock local came around and I was right. Unfortunately, 40 meters wasn't
much better. The Clock struck 0000 UTC and I expected a flurry of activity.
Pretty much nothing. I called CQ a few times with very little response on 40. I
went up the phone called about 20 times and still got no response . Wow . A mult
a no takers? Disappointing to say the least. It actually forced me down to 80
meters CW which is even a worse proposition because noise levels are near but S
9. There was some local contest club text chatter in the text mails that if
VE4GV (VE4RAC) was already on 80 meters CW things were really bad , and they
were the first night. My XYL was wondering why I was screaming at the radio,
cursing and ranting that it was a complete waste of time. At 0323 after a whole
44 qsos I decided to turn off the radio and try to get up early the next morning
to see if 20 meters would provide the spark I needed, to rejuvenate my appetite
for this contest.
Fortunately, conditions on Saturday were much better. Although there aren't many
advantages of living up here in Manitoba , occasionally you can be rare DX and
the RAC contests provide that opportunity. So, if you needed the manageable
multiplier, you HAD to work me . Before the contest I had decided to try to make
myself as available as possible and pretty much stick to running so that
stations could find me considering that I was the only Manitoba RAC station. If
you didn't work me, it was because we did not have propagation. I pretty much
worked everybody I could hear, at least on that band. 20 meters turned out to
be excellent to the United States, but we never didn't get an opening to Europe
and DX was extremely rare. I originally tried to go up into the higher general
portion of the band but there was a lot of QRM, and I eventually drifted down
further toward 14.200
I was surprised to see how much I enjoyed the high-speed CW qsos. The pileups
were quite deep, and it was a lot of fun working at 34 or 35 words per minute
with some really good OPS answering my call. I must admit to some frustration
when trying to work through a pileup and the answering station sends my call
(Dude! I already KNOW MY call!) and then his call (which i already copied
CORRECTLY-Argh) and then the report. The real good contest ops merely respond
with any corrections in their call and the report and the QSO is extremely
efficient. It's really a pleasure to work them that way. Conditions were never
good to Europe on 20 meters although I didn't work in occasional DX station such
as South Africa who called me.
Aside from a couple of French stations I literally worked no European stations
at all. I continue to be surprised at a very short opening to Europe that occurs
just at the grey line where I was pointed to japan, yet I was called by a
Bulgarian and Norwegian station where at I had not heard any before in the
contest trip. I had this happen before in CQ worldwide . I'm not sure of the
propagation mechanism but it certainly is odd. I never had a real good opening
to Japan though I did work a handful of Japanese stations on 20 cw.
To those of you who called me on 80 meters, I must apologize. I literally have
an S 9 noise level and the mag loop antenna that I put up really doesn't seem to
do very much to solve the problem . I was told that I was quite loud but I
literally couldn't hear very much at all and I am sure there are many stations
who were frustrated with their inability to work me even though they could hear
me quite well. Such are the problems of living in the city, 30 or 40 feet from
power line Transformers and overhead transmission lines.
I never managed to make it down to 160 meters which was a mistake and I
apologize for that .
All in all, I was surprised I managed to split my efforts fairly evenly between
both modes and although I only worked a total of approximately 10 1/2 hours op
time, I made over 1300 qsos.
73 Rob VE4GV
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