IOTA Contest
Call: 9M8Z
Operator(s): 9M6DXX
Station: 9M8Z
Class: SO24SSB HP
QTH: Borneo Island
Operating Time (hrs): 20
Summary:
Band CW Qs CW Mults Ph Qs Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
80: 4 2
40: 240 47
20: 586 70
15: 584 65
10: 20 10
----------------------------------------
Total: 0 0 1434 194 Total Score = 2,457,980
Club: Chiltern DX Club
Comments:
Arrived at the station on Friday to find the 40m 2-ele beam at 130 feet was not
working. Made and put up a 40m wire dipole at about 75ft as a contingency. On
Saturday, a professional tower climber spent the whole day up and down the
tower. Fault found to be a corroded connection in one of the driven element's
loading coils. Antenna eventually working after dark and in torrential tropical
rain at 7.15pm, just 45 minutes before the start of the contest at 8.00pm local
time!
The contest started with S9-plus rain static on all bands but fortunately the
storm passed after an hour or two and the first 10 hours of the contest (during
night hours) were great, with over 1000 QSOs in the log by local sun-rise on
Sunday. However, daytime propagation in the tropics is dire. The next 12 hours,
during the day on Sunday, were terrible, with high absorption on all bands up to
20m, no propagation to speak of at all on 10m (and I thought this was meant to
be the peak of the solar cycle?!), and extremely weak signals on 15m, requiring
numerous repeats. The majority of EU QSOs from 0700 to 1130UTC on Sunday were at
ESP levels, often fading into the noise and then peaking just high enough to
copy the exchange.
It was good to hear more participation from JA this year compared with previous
years, but this is still very much a European contest.
"Working conditions": Kenwood TS-990, Commander HF-2500 amp, 400W, to
Create 7-element 15m monoband Yagi at 45ft fixed on Europe; Cushcraft A4S
tribander at 60ft fixed on VK/ZL; 40m wire dipole at 75ft; Cushcraft X7 beam at
120ft (rotatable); Cushcraft 40-2CD 2-element 40m beam at 130ft (rotatable);
Create 80m rotatable dipole at 140ft.
73,
Steve, 9M6DXX ( @ 9M8Z)
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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