CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 2003
Call: OH6NIO
Category: Single Operator Assisted
Power: High Power
Band: All Band
Mode: SSB
Country: Finland
Zone: 15
BAND QSO QSO PTS PTS/QSO ZONES COUNTRIES
160 16 15 0.94 3 15
80 74 96 1.30 8 47
40 107 177 1.65 18 68
20 384 649 1.69 31 110
15 870 1872 2.15 34 120
10 164 316 1.93 24 85
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Totals 1615 3125 1.93 118 445 => 1,759,375
All reports sent were 59(9), unless otherwise noted.
Equipment Description: FT 1000MP + kW homebrew amplifier (80 - 10m), IC-765
100W, CTwin-network + telnet DX-cluster, CAT, automatic antenna switching.
Antennas: 40m - 10m 2 - 5 element yagis, 80m vertical & dipole, 160m dipole.
Comments:
In the beginning the contest was a mixture of dead slow S&P operating hours and
equipment problems that almost made me pull the big switch. Later on Sunday I
enjoyed the best DX pile-ups in many years and the technical problems were over.
It was very difficult to pull out some of the DX-multipliers thanks to the poor
propagation and the big pile-ups. Some seemingly strong DX-stations were nearly
impossible to work whereas another similar but much weaker station was a
one-shot.
Week before the contest I made some final tests with my new setup with CAT,
automatic antenna switching and the computer network with telnet cluster
access.
Everything was working smoothly without any RFI and all I had to do is just
calmly wait for the contest weekend when the hard work would have been rewarded
with endless stream of juicy multipliers and DX-contacts just flowing into my
log. Well, my station was actually not quite that ready because I was still
waiting for the band pass filters. I was also using low power on 160m and the
2nd radio was running 100W too. Anyway I thought that this would be one golden
opportunity to test all the new stuff.
I was busy at work all week prior to the contest so there was no time to play
with the radios. Late at thursday evening I thought that I should finally get a
feel of the propagation. To my great surprise 15m was very quiet. I could not
even hear the normal background noise. When I tried to transmit I realized that
my radio is not working properly. After a brief check on the other bands
revealed that the problem was only on 15m on the main radio. The sub RX worked
fine on all bands. I figured out that there must be something wrong with the
main PLL-VCO chain but I did not have any service manual available so I had to
disassemble the whole radio before I could locate the faulty circuit board. I
could not get it fixed so I went to bed very dissapointed. I had almost lost
all
my motivation to enter the contest.
On friday I was back home around 7PM and I was originally supposed to be
sleeping at that moment but I was once again busy fixing my broken radio. When
I
finally had my radio back in the line it was already too late to hit the sack.
I
just scanned through the bands and feared that maybe the radio was still broken.
When the contest started the bands were in very bad shape. The propagation was
blocked into the north for the whole weekend so I could not even hear a whisper
from KL7 or KH6-stations. After 1 hour I got so tired that I had to get some
shut eye. In the morning I woke-up still very tired around 06Z and I started to
S&P on 40m. The DX-stations weaker than normally but I managed to pull out a
few
good ones. The DX-propagation was very poor for running any pile-ups and I did
not feel like working a lot of Europeans so I concentrated on hunting for the
multipliers. Occasionally I took a break because there was no hurry with the
contest. The first day yielded only 448 QSOs and 324 multipliers.
I was still very tired in the night so I took a good break and I was back at my
radio at 07AM Sunday morning. It was the last time to pull out those caribbean
signals on 40m. I noticed immediately that there had been a major change for
better in the propagation. Around 08Z I run for a while on 20m for Europe but
before 09Z I jumped briefly to 15m and then to 10m and back and forth. I was
still S&Ping for multipliers. Around 11Z I looked for a good spot on 15m and
finally got one. The next 4 hours were the highlight of the contest. The band
opened into the states and the last ten min. rate was peaking 300+. At 15Z the
band took a slight dive and around 16Z I had to S&P again to get some more
QSOs.
It was hard to notice once again that the guys from Europe were running into
the
states with endless supply of callers. 18Z I had a decent run into Europe on
20m
but the rest of the contest was mostly S&Ping and looking for the new
multipliers. The last 3 hours of the contest resulted in 46 new multipliers. I
was surprised that 48% of my QSOs were DX. If I had run more the DX-percentage
would have been much lower along with the increasing number of European QSOs.
Considering the problems and the challenging propagation I was quite satisfied
with my result. Monday at 00Z suddenly the raging bands calmed down and one
more
exciting show was over. I can't wait for the CW part.
Thank you for the QSOs!
73 de Teijo, OH6NIO
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The world's top contesters battle it out in Finland!
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