8Q7AA - Final Comments/Stats
January 31, 1998
Fellow DX'ers...
The 8Q7AA group of the Central Arizona DX Association is now back home,
working to overcome 12 hours of jet lag and doing our best to sort
through the details of an amazing operating experience. We would like to
thank everyone for an overwhelmingly high level of interest. Some
stations, such as W1NG, worked us on 10 band/modes! As stated before our
departure, the goal of this operation was to have a meaningful presence
on the low bands (6,755 contacts on 160, 80 and 40-meters) and to
concentrate on North America.
Our only disaster was that one FT-1000MP suffered a cracked PC board
during transit. For five of our nine days on Alimatha Island we were
limited to only three functional stations. Unbelievably, KP4RF was able
to meticulously jumper all the broken PC board traces using a
microsurgical technique that would make any neurosurgeon proud and
restore an otherwise DOA radio to perfect working order! In spite of this
unexpected setback, we still managed to log more than 17,000 contacts.
Our 160-meter specialist, Bruce Sawyer, N6NT, was able to put 85 North
America Top Banders in the log. Because of sunrise/sunset timing issues,
most of these stations were from the Eastern 2/3 of the NA continent, and
just after their sunset. At sunrise for the West coast of NA, it was just
too early in the evening from our location off the southwest tip of India
to be effective. Conditions would vary from outstanding (contacts ranging
from KH6, JA8, OH2 and YL2 in less than 60 minutes) to so bad that I had
to check to see if our 160-meter vertical had been washed away!
Unfortunately, for the weekend of the 160-meter CW DX contest, conditions
were some of the worst of the entire DXpedition. For those who are
interested, N6NT has posted a detailed summary of our 160-meter
experience to the Top Band Reflector.
On 75-meter SSB, Rich Chatelain, K7ZV, gave the same outstanding
performance as he did from XZ1N during the 1996 Myanmar operation. During
one simply amazing 14-hour opening, he worked hundreds of stations on
both the East and West coasts of NA, along with a few hundred Europeans
thrown in for good measure. Many now have zone 22 on this band/mode
because of his dedicated efforts night after night.
Our hard working HF SSB crew of Oscar Resto, KP4RF, Sally Martinez,
KM5EP, Dan Brown, NA7DB, and Paul Playford, W8AEF handed out thousands of
contacts, day and night. As NM7M predicted, each day the 20-meter West
coast sunset long path opening from zone 22 was absolutely terrific!
KP4RF even spent several evenings on 40-meters working Spanish language
South America stations, an area often overlooked. Not a surprise, Europe
on 17-meter SSB was unbelievable! This is the first year that the SSB ops
of our team beat the CW ops in total number of contacts.
The energetic CW boys, Bruce Sawyer, N6NT, Darryl Hazelgren, AF7O,
myself, K7WX, and Steve Thompson, N7TX, made a special effort to work
into W5 and W0, knowing that these areas would have the most difficulty
both hearing and being heard. I am grateful to the many East coast
stations who so very patiently stood by as we tried to make ourselves
available to the Midwest. Without exception, European stations also
graciously allowed us to meet our stated objective, even during times
when we were still loud into zones 14 and 15.
N7TX has begun an analysis of the logs. Below is a "first pass" through
the .bin files from the four operating positions:
CW SSB RTTY TOTALS
160 664 40 0 704
80/75 537 1,704 0 2,241
40 2,149 1,661 0 3,810
30 1,178 0 0 1,178
20 1,519 2,625 200 4,344
17 1,734 909 0 2,643
15 434 1,654 0 2,088
12 348 423 0 771
10 65 59 0 124
_______ _______ _______ _______
TOTALS 8,628 9,075 200 17,903
We will begin mailing QSLs in several weeks. Direct requests can be made
to:
Steve Thompson, N7TX
119 E. Jasmine St.
Mesa, AZ 85201-1811 USA
We are also much indebted to our West coast pilot Dick Wolf, N6FF, who
during our time in Indian Ocean made daily summaries of hundreds of your
e-mail comments. These very helpful
observations/criticisms/encouragements made all the difference for us!
Further details, and some pictures, will soon be available on our web
site located at:
http://cadxa.org/8q7aa
Additional comments about this operation are always welcome. Thanks again
for the QSOs!
73 de Warren, K7WX
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