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IG9/IV3TAN response - summary (long)

Subject: IG9/IV3TAN response - summary (long)
From: K3BU@aol.com (K3BU@aol.com)
Date: Wed Nov 13 23:38:13 1996
IG9/IV3TAN
We received some comments and description of IG9 operation from the "horses"
mouth - operators at IG9 - IV3TAN and I4UFH. If, as Albert says, he ran Yaesu
FL2100Z amplifier (into the antenna) this would make IG9 location, operation
and the setup the most incredible we have seen. This might be the answer to
the Hill vs. Ocean question - get both. As we can see from the description,
IV3TAN was located 150 m above the ocean, on the cliff, on the West side,
which should favor the W, SW and NW directions. As I mentioned previously, I
have seen at the early openings signals to be 20 dB over S9, when rest of the
Eu and Af would be just breaking out from the noise! Most of us found the
bands to be in terrible shape, it looks like being South, helped to work most
of us almost unaffected. 
Congratulations to both operators on 80 and 160 for new records, sure sets
the high mark. Well, I'm on my way to look for the round island with high
hill and next door to Europe! In the mean time back to CG1ZZ for CW.
Thanks to all for comments and participation in this exciting pursuit for
excellence!

73 de Yuri Blanarovich, K3BU, VE3BMV, P40A, ex OK3BU  
and will be again CG1ZZ on 160 in CQ WW CW
K3BU@AOL.COM

******************
Here are more comments and info from the IG9 operators:

Hi Yuri,
sorry for the delayed answer, I have fired up again the computer only today,
after one heavy bussiness week, after 2 week of IG9 sand and sun !!!

Well, about our operation, we have covered all 6 band, with a single op. 
efforts, in the next years we are planning a M/S or M/M efforts.

The island is a very flat part of african territories, no hills, no trees,
and
located around 150 m above the sea level. Albert IV3TAN, was on the
ocean, using a full vertical 1/4 wave for 160m, with 4 elevated radials and
over 1 Km
of radials over the ground and 3 beverage N, N/W, S/W 250m each long. Running
out in a little truck, with limited power supply, IC775, PA homemade antenna
box switch and computer. He has broken, even doubled, the previous World
Score, no final score
still avalaible.

I was on 80m, always over the sea, with a full 1/4 vertical on 80m and 8
elevated radials, two beverage N , N/W over 200 m long and a dipole at least
45 m over the sea in the W direction. I had operated into a bungalow with
Kenwood TS 950, PA, a multifunction homemade antenna switch that allow to
switch independently 6 TX and 6 RX antennas. 

More history will be available soon on the reflector, if you have available
CQ Contest Feb/96, you can found some pictures and articles of the 1995
operation, in the same places of this year.
                                           Best 73 de Fabio, I4UFH / KF6FBE


IG9   LAMPEDUSA is.  AF 33  CQWW 96 SSB Story
some one has requested a brief story of these activity............

Once again we have setup 6 single band single op. from IG9. This is a
big effort, a full six station was installed in a field day configuration,
unfortunatly we are not into 500m diameter so no M/S or M/M effort
available.

A Brief history of the highlight moment :
160m. IG9/IV3TAN, Albert was located in the border of the island near the
lighthouse of the island, off the ocean, operating from a little truck, and a
beautiful full 1/4 wave vertical antenna 39 m. high with 4 elevated 1/4 wave
radial and over 1 Km of wire on the ground. Three 2m high beverage receiving
antennas into N for EU, N/W for USA and S/W for SA direction.
Condition was incredible, more that 150 USA station, more that 100 country
and most of the best DX on the LOG, HS,XX,ZS8,ZS,CE,LU. The Island is far
from EUROPE so is easy to found a clear, a very clear frequency, without
strong QRM.

80m.  IG9/I4UFH, Fabio has setup his station on a bungalow at 10m from the
sea, with a 20m, full 1/4 wave vertical with 8 elevated radials, two beverage
antennas, N to EU and N/W to USA dipole at 45m above the see into E
direction, very useful for the KH2,KH0 mults. The Contest was opened with 163
QSO in the first hour, a huge pile-up from EU and Asia. First night the
condition wasn't good for USA, but good mult's appear, DU,YB,V5,LU,CE, and
almost all the Carabian mults. The second days start with a juiced mults,
KH8, KH2, KH0, V85, XX9, JT, VU, 4S7 HC8, and a hard EU pile-up, the
night appear a solid night for the USA guys, and finally, BOB W6RJ appear on
log,
Zone 3 is fixed !! Over 250 USA station on the log at the end of the Contest.
Last highlight, at 4 hours from the end of the Contest, the band open with
JA, an incredible emotion to work as many JA on 80m.
 
40m. IG9/IT9GSF, Fabio has installed again the 2 element Yagi full size, on
the top of a 25m, tower, with the World Score in mind. Some days before the
Contest the Power Supply of the PA brokes, and ha you can immagine, on the
island you can found only a TV techican with his 100 ohm 1/4 W resistor,  no
2000V diode for the Power Supply !!! Even more in a some way he has fixed the
problem with surplus diode found on a old tube military equipments.
The start was very hard, all EU station listening up for USA, so he has
started with a huge USA pile-up, with good mults, the morning starts with
Oceanian ZL, VK pile-up and all days with EU. more that 2200 QSO at the end.

20m. IG9/IK2QEI, Steve a newcomer into the IG9 story, a quite good op, in his
very first 3 point operation. Antenna setup is a 20m high KT34XA in the
center of the island, 800 m from the sea, IC765 and PA. Several RF problem
and computer difficults all fixed with a lot of RF ferrite choke, all around
the shack. 20m is the most difficult ad critical band, you cannot sleep, as
15m and 10m ops, because is a a band edge from IG9, short EU skip is always
present night and day. Starting with few QSO, the band is not close but no
takers, they are all on lower band, the band begin to open at the sunrise,
and finally the pile-up appear, KH6 and KL7 are logged, all EU mults in no
more that 4 hours, and finally USA opening until the band deading, all the
most great mults from Asia appear on the log, XX,HS,KH2,KH0 very easy. The
second day condition seem worst, the rate drop down, and the EU QRM is very
strong. A lot of fun, has first experience.

15m.  IG9/IT9EQO, Antonello has setup his 5 element yagi long boom and all
the equipment, but unfortunatly the location was the only one location in the
island with a little hill trough USA to JA !! So the activity was very
limited, some good rates wit JA trough long path, ma unsuccefully activity.

10m. Same problem for the 10m station, worked over 200 S. American guys,
and 24 Zone, but only 2 EU station. A Contest to forget.

The island seem to have a particular advantage on the lower band, the low
noise and the ocean helps to obtain fun and scores. The high band suffer of
the low sunspot cycle, we think that in a couple of year, IG9 could be an
high class world location. Now IG9 dosn't have the capability to work more
that 6000 QSO in this period, we will wait for better condition.
We have a lot of work to do, but the Contest is the Contest .......  
Plans for the next  year a M/S WPX Contest and, finally, the best
category a WWDX M/S.
                                   73 de Fabio I4UFH  / IG9 / one of IR4T /
KF6FBE


Puzzled ? 
I don't know how much power they run, but there are more people using Vy HP
than you could presume.
                                     73 de Jose, EA7KW/EH7KW  IM67xi


Hello Yuri,
This is a message from Albert  IV3TAN, describing his activity from IG9. I
have ONLY  digited it on my mail postbox !!! In the next 10  days  he will be
on Internet, so you can mail directly with him 
-------------------------------------------------

Well, this  a  detailed description  of the 160m, IG9 activity. You can view
 the location  of  the 160m 1996 activity at page 45 of CQ Contest Feb96. The
tower on  the  right of  the lighthouse, is a commercial 30m tower temporaly
not in use, I have installed a 10 m  alluminium tube  on  the top of the
tower and installed more  that 100 radials at the base of the insulated
tower, with lenght between 20 and  40 m.  The tower, as you can  see, is
located at 25 m from the  edge  with  a 150m deep into the Mediterranean Sea.

The receiving  part was  builded  with the installation of 3 beverage : First
one to S/W to  South America 350m long and  2  m  high terminated with 600
ohm resitor. Second  one  to N/W  to USA 350m long long and 2.2 m high and
same resistor. The third one to North EU direction 245m long and 2.2 m high
and 600 ohm termination.

A Dipole antenna for  high  EU  angle  signal has been installed near the
 rock  at  100m above sea level only for receiving use.
Equipment description  were  a ICOM 775, homemade voice keyer, Power
Amplifier was, belive or not, a Yaesu FL2100Z, homemade switching antenna.

Obviously I have photos and video to confirm what I am declaring now to you,
 and all  available to everyone. I have photos of the antennas, radials,
equipments and accessories.

I have spent 3  years  Contesting in  IG9,  first year, I had some  technical
difficults, so  I was only 20 Place  World. Second  Year  in  this same
place, near the lighthouse I have setted the  new CQWW SO 80m  World  record,
record just broken by IG9/I4UFH  this year, this year  I have tried the Top
Band  due  the fact  that  the location sound
fantastic.

In my last  five years  of  low  band  Contesting this  is the  first  year
 that I  found  a  very incredible condition, for this latitude even  the
days before the Contest the Band sound as my home QTH,with the advantage to
be in the most southern part of EU.

The Contest start with very huge EU pile-up, with opening to Asia, the
sunrise allowed  me  to work USA stations in a  very fast  way  with  a
strong signals on the beverage, belive or not in the Top Band the  problem is
 receiving  not trasmitting, and the beverage on that kind  of terrain,
sounds as a razors.
I have ended the first day around 08.00z with 550 QSO, started again at 12.30
CQing  and  beginning to work EU at  13.20  at  10/15 QSO  hour. Around
16.00z I have worked XX9 and HS1, and  some Asian mults.
All the afternoon goes to work EU, and the  night again the USA opening
appear on  the beverage, at the sunrise  05.28z  the KL7 appear on the Log !!
Ended again around 07.00 with 1000 Qs and started again at 15.00z for  the
last  211 Qs, EU strong, some African mults, and at  the  end 1211 Qso, 24
zone and 101 Country.

I will be directly available into Internet in few days, so for any question,
wait few days,  I will send a message to everyone involved into  my mail
                                                                  73 de
Albert IV3TAN
                                    73 de Fabio I4UFH / one of IR4T / KF6FBE

i4ufh@contest.dsnet.it wrote:
> Claimed Score of the IG9 activity in the CQWW96 SSB:
> 
> Category         Call       QSO   Zone Cty    Score
> 
> Single Op. 160m  IG9/IV3TAN 1211  24   101    452.050 New World Record
> Single Op. 80m   IG9/I4UFH  1820  32   127    851.763 New World Record
> Single Op. 40m   IG9/IT9GSF 2370  33   133  1.174.000
> Single Op. 20m   IG9/IK2QEI 2296  37   133  1.149.030
> Single Op. 15m   IG9/IT9EQO 1256  31   115    538.302

Well it is now possible to work DXCC on 160 meters in 1 weekend!  
                                              Bernie McClenny W3UR (ex WR3E,
WB3JRU)

Sure ! I agree 100 % with you. Just wanted to say that there are mni others
running more than 2 KW, i.e., here in EA an EA2 guy sells PAs with 6 KW, the
TREMENDUS III ampifier, what a name ...
                                           73 de Jose, EA7KW/EH7KW  IM67xi


K3BU (see later in this message) is raising doubts about IG9/IV3TAN CQWW96
SSB results.
Is there a technical/magical breakthrough we should all hear about?
Do you know anything about it?
What do you think about it?
If K3BU is right, can anything be done about it in the future?
                                         73's ye all, de Zaile.
P.S. As the issue is the subject, I decided not to sign by my callsign.
     I won't be around for awhile, so I won't be able to reffer to return
mail.
     Feel free to ponder the issue publicly.


A fantastic signal all night through in South Africa.  The best off all is
that they worked numerous ZS stations running <100W into 80m dipoles or wet
noodles alike.
I am more interested in their receiving setup than anything else!
Let us not speculate and get them to explain!  I am sure someone with access
to this reflector knows one or more of the operators.
Good luck!
                                       Bernie ZS4TX 


Yes, the IG9 on 160 was really loud at HS1AZ and stayed loud all night.  He
was at least 15-20 db louder than any European.  I worked him easily when he
first appeared on the band at HS - he was only up to S7 at that time, not
even close to the 20 over he would peak later.  If he had a 10 kw
transmitter he also had a 10kw receiver - I called many, many Europeans who
were S7 or better and most of them didn't have a clue.  The QSB was also
more pronounced on Eu stations.  I suspect IG9 is a pretty phenomenal QTH
for 160.  I couldn't do that well from Alaska on 160 with 100kw.
                                               Dan KL7Y

Hello there.
             Well, I succeeded in staying around the net longer than I
thought.
The IG9/IV3TAN CQWW96 SSB 'business' is raising more question-marks as time
passes.
I must addmit that the phrase 'unfairness' is in the back of my mind all the
time. I do not mean unfairness to the contesters who didn't have the mega-S,
but unfairness to the IG9 operator(s?) who had it.
This is not a trial, this is not a complaint yet. It is an amazement and
curiousity. Reading the messages about the subject, one could easily descern
the feelings of hurt, jealousy, helplessness, unjustness and the like.
These are the kind of feelings one feels, while thinking of being deprived
of something.
We are dealing with something we suspect. We feel/think we are deprived of
knowledge. We suspect there is a secret. Is there a secret? 
Let us assume there is no secret and plainly ask IV3TAN, to tell us about
the conditions (technical/topografical), that attributed to his/her
beautiful feat. It will be nice if someone will be able to let IV3TAN tell
us about it.
Meanwhile, does anybody know what were the working conditions of IG9/IV3TAN
during the contest? What do you know about the geographical conditions in
this QTH?
Do you have details concerning the other operators of IG9 at that contest?
Were they outstandingly strong as IG9/IV3TAN? Were they operating from the
same place?
Did you have lately, previous QSO's with the IG9 contest operators? Was
there something unusual in terms of strength, equipment, or the like?
Icluded here is the message from the 11/11/96, that was sent by Bernie
McClenny, WR3E. 
                           73's to you all, de Zaile.



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