Dang, I had forgotten that this doggoned server
rejects all attachments. Here's the 3830 text.
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It?s called the WORLDWIDE contest for good
reason, and this year PJ2T had a truly worldwide team. Check out our team list:
Kei, JJ1RJR, lives and works in Jakarta,
Indonesia, and traveled AROUND THE WORLD to
Curacao in order to spend 3.5 days at PJ2T. He
made that monster trip from Jakarta, to Kuala
Lumpur, then Amsterdam, then Aruba, and finally
Curacao, and then back, solely to operate with
us. This was not a work related trip ? it was
just for the contest! In our long PJ2T history
nobody has come farther, although RW0CN comes
close. Kei spent four days traveling in order to
spend three days operating in Curacao.
Uli, DL8OBQ, is a many years CCC/PJ2T member from
Rinteln, Germany, and served as our operating leader.
Heiko, DK3DM, also has many contests at PJ2T
under his belt and made the journey from Warstein, Germany.
Ton, PA1CC, came to Curacao on KLM from his home
in Tilburg, Netherlands and has also been at PJ2T multiple times before.
Tom, VE3CX, lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Check
that out on the map. That?s a lonnnnng way from
Toronto and other major hubs, yet he made the
trip a second time to be part of PJ2T.
I (Geoff, W0CG) live in Coeur d Alene, Idaho.
That?s so darned remote that it takes me more
total clock time (34 hours) and more flight
segments (four and sometimes five) to get to
Curacao than our friends from Europe.
Rich, W3ACO, joined our team for the second time,
traveling from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. That sounds
like it should be easy, but he was delayed out of
CID by American Eagle and had to spend an unplanned night in Miami.
Pete, K8PGJ, came to the island from Detroit, his
first trip to PJ2T, taking a chance on a place he
had never been and a bunch of guys he had never
met. He fitted in instantly and was a huge asset to the team.
Ray, NM2O, traveled from Albany, New York.
And finally there is long time CCC/PJ2T member
Jack, N4RV, traveling from Washington Dulles who
has been operating from the Coral Cliff
neighborhood of Curacao for some half a century,
earning multiple World #1 single op titles from
that neighborhood. Jack and Gwyn in fact spent
their honeymoon in the famous PJ9JT, now PJ2T
house. His long experience was of priceless value to the team.
So in the best spirit of the contest our CQ
Worldwide team really was worldwide. In the space
of a few hours on Tuesday before the contest we
met Uli?s KLM 747 at the airport, Heiko?s Air
Berlin flight from Dusseldorf, Ton?s slightly
later KLM flight from Amsterdam, and multiple
American Airlines flights from the States. Kei
arrived Thursday on Tui Airlines from Amsterdam
via Aruba. Just add up the miles they traveled
collectively to be able to sit down at our desk
on Friday night and start giving out the five
nine nines that you heard all weekend.
All of us in this sport are fascinated that it?s
a different contest every time. The solar
forecasts were for active to disturbed
conditions. The forecasts were correct. We noted
suppressed conditions on many bands. Polar paths
suffered the most. In years with peak sunspots,
conditions are so good that everyone works
everyone, and in those conditions the contest is
usually dominated by the Zone 33 teams who are
very close to Europe and thus are able to benefit
from huge availability of many nearby mults on
the low bands, while at the same time being able
to run North America like crazy. In years at the
bottom of the cycle it sometimes seems like
nobody is working anything and we all ask
ourselves why we?re not home watching football.
But in the in between years like this year, we
benefit in the Caribbean. Zone 33 is able to
still rack up tons of mults, particularly on the
low bands, but have some problems working North
America, especially on 10. When the States is not
able to run Europe vigorously, attention turns to
the Caribbean, and we benefit as you can see from
our QSO counts. Also, we have the benefit of the
north-south path and thus 10 sounds great to us
when it seems nearly dead for east-west paths. So
in conditions like this year our ability to make
very large numbers of QSOs into North America
makes up and then some for Zone 33?s ability to
harvest lots of low band mults. How that all
balances out awaits final corrected scores, but
one has to admit that the changing landscape of
the contest, year by year, is endlessly fascinating.
PJ2T is now beginning our 17th continuous year of
contesting from the former PJ9JT / W1BIH John
Thompson QTH. We have only missed one major
contest in all that time, that one because of a
last minute medical problem. Doing so requires
major support of all kinds from our dedicated CCC
club members, and I am happy to be able to thank
all of them here publicly for all those years of
effort. The composition of our membership has
changed over all that time, understandably, as
life situations change, but our accomplishments
in this contest and in this contest season are a
result of the accumulated support of all those
people over a long period of years. I thank and salute them all.
For this specific CQWW SSB 2016 effort, a special
thanks to Uli, DL8OBQ, a highly accomplished
operator and leader, who coached the team, led
the on-air strategy, crafted the operating
schedule, went all weekend with nearly zero
sleep, and kept us all on our game. Thanks also
to veteran Jack, N4RV, for his inputs from a half
century of Curacao experience before and during
the operation, for his incredible pileup ears,
and for keeping everyone laughing. I also thank
Heiko, DK3DM (?The Loudspeaker?) for his
tirelessness and stamina on the air, Ray, NM2O,
for unparalleled analytical analyses, Kei, JJ1RJR
for his long travel, great operating skills, and
spoken Japanese during those JA runs. Ton, PA1CC,
is an incredibly friendly and articulate
gentleman and a whisper-quiet operator, and you
would almost not even notice he is sitting there
except that the rate meter at times glows red
when he?s operating. Rich, W3ACO, doubled as our
incredible chef for the week and also did a
masterful job on the air, patiently carrying runs
and chasing mults, and Pete, K8PGJ, adapted to
the station immediately and distinguished himself
by being willing to do ANYTHING at any time for
anyone that could help the team on the air, my
work, trips to the airport, antenna work at a
local, slogging in the hot sticker bushes and
cactus, or anything else that needed to be done.
Tom, VE3CX is a seasoned, highly experienced
contester and he was a huge asset to the on-air
team and we were very lucky to have his presence,
and he also made an embarrassingly large
unsolicited cash contribution after he got home to help keep PJ2T on the air.
Finally, I again thank our member Rick, N0YY, who
with W0AWL and W0GXA in Iowa built our beautiful
new operating consoles and much of the new
antenna switching system, and Mal, NP2L, who has,
without ever having been asked, contributed very
significant amounts of cash over a period of many
years to the PJ2T effort. We are also indebted to
Tom, W8TK, for enormous donations of equipment in
our early years and to Yaesu for helping us to
obtain two FT-2000s on attractive terms. These,
together with many other contributions and
efforts too numerous to mention individually,
have kept us going and have resulted in the
fairly recent addition of our 4O3A triplexer
system, a high power antenna switch from W9NJY,
the new operating desks, and the pushbutton
antenna switching system that have greatly
improved our on air operability, and it all shows in this year?s score.
Also always in our thoughts are our departed
members Noel, W9EFL (SK), Joe, W9JUV (SK), our QSL Manager Scott, N9AG (SK).
For 48 magic hours all of us around the world in
the contest are part of a fellowship of friends
bound by passion and shared interest, respect,
and admiration. Nothing in the world could have
made me more proud or feel more privileged than
to stand at PJ2T?s kitchen sink with my arms
crossed and a broad smile and watch this great
group of friends in our shack engaged with all of
you in this wonderful worldwide family.
QSLs via W3HNK and LotW. See you on the CW weekend.
59 9 from Curacao, and thanks!
- Geoff, W0CG, PJ2DX, Coeur d Alene, Idaho
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